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COPYBIQHT DEPOSIT 



ANDREW JOHNSON, 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; 



HIS LIFE AND SPEECHES. 



BY 



LILLIAN FOSTER, 

▲CTHOB OF " WAYSIDE GLIMPSES NORTH AND SOUTH," &0. 



NEW YORK: 
RICHARDSON & CO., 

540 BROADWAY. 
1866. 



liO-^ ' y^-^ . SA//^C 



-^1 



Entered according to Act of Congvpfs, in the year 1S66, 

By J,1LLIAN FOSTEU, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Di^tI•ict Court of the United States for tho South- 
ern District of I^ew York. 



'^^. 



% 



'^P. 



X 






PREFACE. 



The future of our country depends so much upon the 
distinguished and remarkable individual who now 
occupies the Presidential Chair, J;hat "a-^p^artrait of his 
life and character, adapted to general use, caniiot fail 
to receive a favorable reception from the entire commu- 
nity. Such a biographical sketch, written by a coun- 
trywoman of the Chief Magistrate, may also be sup- 
posed to interest, in a particular manner, that sex 
who have suffered so fasi^^yfdnnng the late terrible 
war, and who now reji^^iwith all their hearts at the 
prospects of Peace, "Ciiion, and Prosperity which the 
noble and patriotic conduct of the President is rapidly 
>j'estoring to every section of the great Republic. 

A true-hearted woman naturally admires and appre- 
ciates great and heroic excellence. Her tribute of 
esteem and gratitude for brave and magnanimous 
actions is shadowed by no jealousy and colored by 
no party opinions. 



PKEFACE. * 

With such feelings, I present to my countrymen 
and especially to my countrywomen, this brief narra- 
tion of the life and public services of His Excellency 
President Andrew Johnson, ' believing him to be a 
statesman whose whole intellect is" devoted to the 
greatest good of the entire United States, and whose 
admirable policy of restoration commends itself to the 
warmest approbation and the most zealous support of 
the best and wisest portion of the American people. 



CONTENTS. 



PAOK 

Biographical Introduction 9 

CHAPTER I. 
Tlie Constitutionality and Rightfulness of Secession 33 

CHAPTER II. 
The Homestead Bill 61 

CHAPTER III. 
State of the Union 125 

CHAPTER IV. 

Speech on the War for the Union, delivered in the Senate, 
July 27, 1861 , 130 

CHAPTER V. 

Speech on the Proposed Expulsion of Mr. Bright, deliver- 
ed in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 31, 1862.. 136 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

PA6«. 

Appeal to the People of Tennessee 179 

CHAPTER VII. 
Nominated for the Vice-Presidency , 185 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Takes the Oath as President. . . . •; ; . 192 

CHAPTER IX. 
Eeception of the Illinois Delegation 195 

CHAPTER X. 
Reception of the British Ambassador 203 

CHAPTER XI. 
Reception of the Diplomatic Corps 206 

CHAPTER XII. 
Address to Loyal Southerners 208 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Speech to the Indiana Delegation 213 

CHAPTER XIV. 
A Delesration of Southern Men visit the President 216 



CONTENTS. 7 

CHAPTER XV. 

PAIR. 

Veto of tlie Freedmen's Bureau Bill 226 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Speecli to the Citizens of Washington, Feb. 22d, 1866 243 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Civil Rights Bill.— The President's Veto 2G4 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Annual Message to the Thirty-ninth Congress 281 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Conclusion 814 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 



At the beginning of the present century there 
resided iu llaleigh, the capital of North CaroHna, 
a couple who were pecuniarily in circumstances 
which excluded them from a social position with 
their more wealthy and aristocratic neighbors ; 
yet within that humble abode the young wife 
gave birth to a son, who was destined to achieve 
the highest position by his commanding intellect 
and exalted moral worth. 

Andeew Johnson was born on the 29th day of 
December, 1808. While stiU in his fifth year, his 
father lost his life by injuries received through 
magnanimous and successful efforts to save Col. 
Thomas Henderson, editor of the Ealeigh Gazette, 
from drowning, — leaving his wife and young son 
dependent upon their own efforts for future sup- 
port. The calamitous event of his father's death 
prevented the son from receiving even an ordi- 
nary education. The admirable system of com- 

1* 



10 ANDREW JOHNSOiST. 

moD or free schools, \^ liich are now enjoyed by 
the poor children of the whole coiintrj, is a bless- 
ing which at that time had not been experienced 
by North Carolina, and consequently young 
Johnson was never enabled to receive an hour's 
instritction in a schoolroom. At the early age of 
ten years he was apprenticed to a tailor, ia his 
native town, until he was seventeen. Applying 
himself steadily to his trade for his own and 
mother's support, he was left without any re- 
source but iii his own exertions, and he thus be- 
gan life struggUng with the rough business world, 
but v/ith a heart that stoutly battled poverty and 
misfortune, and that soon won him the confidence 
and respect of even the most wealthy and respect- 
able portion of the commimity in which he re- 
sided. 

In the company of his associates he felt the 
great want of the learning which fortune denied 
him, and at once resolved to i^emedy the deficien- 
cy by all the means which energy and time could 
command. A gentleman residing in town made 
frequent visits to the tailor's sliop, who enhght- 
ened the minds and lightened the hours of toil 
by reading to the workmen. The book selected 
(a collection of speeches by British statesmen) so 
interested and aroused the ambition of young 
Johnson, that his mind was indoctrinated with 
principles and ideas which in after-yeai's were 
developed in the halls of Congress, He devoted 
liie hours after his day's work was done to learn- 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 11 

ing the alphabet, which he soon mastered ; and 
then he asked the loan of the book, that he might 
learn to spell. The owner, instead of loaning, 
gave him the work, and also instructed him in 
the formation of words. Through perseverance 
and patience, aided by a strong resolution to sur- 
mount all obstacles, success crowned his efforts ; 
and to his great delight he found himself able to 
read the speeches to which he had only a short 
time before been an interested listener. 

The term of his apprenticeship having expired 
in 1824, he went to Laurens Courthouse, S. C, 
where he worked as a journeyman until May, 
1826, when he returned to Ealeigh. There he 
remained until September of that year, when, in 
company with his mother, he removed to Green- 
ville, a small town in Eastern Tennessee, at which 
place he obtained work. Not many months 
elapsed after his settlement in Greenville before 
he married a young woman, whose mental attain- 
ments and devoted affection exerted a very ben- 
eficial influence on his future life. Sympathizing 
iu the desires of her husband to acquire an edu- 
cation, and in his ambition to rise to distinction, 
scarcely had the marriage ceremony been per- 
formed before this estimable woman commenced 
instructing, by her conversation, and reading to 
him when employed on his work-bench, thus 
lightening his labor by her constant oral instruc- 
tion. At night, when the day's work was done, 
the instructions were continued by lessons in 



12 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

writing and arithmetic. StimiTlated by ambition, 
by unceasing perseverance and an indomitable 
will the poor tailor boy soon became proficient 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and was not 
long in ripening into a thorough English scholar. 
While this romantic part of their history was in 
progress, Mr. Johnson, thinking to better his 
condition by removing West, left Greenville ; but 
after an absence of some months he returned to 
his former home, where he permanently settled. 
The broad and enlightened views of the more 
liberal British statesmen, engrafted on his mind 
by the readings in the old worksho^j, and by his 
future studies of the principles of republican 
government — a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people — formed the basis of 
that system of political philosophy which has 
rendered Mr. Johnson conspicuous among the 
most enlightened statesmen of his country. 

From the very commencement of Mr. John- 
son's career he devoted himself to the interest 
and welfare of the toiling and laboring masses. 
From their ranks he had sprung, and upon them 
in realit}^ rest the hopes and glory of our country. 
He soon bccarne known as the most able advo- 
cate of the working men in Greenville. To 
advance the true interest of the masses of the 
people, he used his influence to assert their right 
to representation in the town councils. In 1828 
the young tailor was triumphantly elected alder- 
man in Greenville, which position he held until 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 13 

1830, when be was elected mayor, and served in 
tliat capacity for three succeeding years, at the 
same time holding the position of trustee of Rhea 
Academ}^ to which he had been appointed ' by 
the County Court. In 1834 he bore a conspic- 
uous part in the adoption of the new Constitution 
of Tennessee, and established his reputation as 
one of the foremost men of his State. 

In 1835 he was elected a member of the House 
of Representatives of the State, for the counties 
of Green and Washington. He distinguished 
himself in that body more particularly by his 
earnest opposition to a grand scheme of internal 
improvement, which he contended would prove 
a failure ; and also denounced it as a base fraud, 
tending to impoverish the State treasury and 
cripple the resources of the commonwealth. 
This opposition rendered him unpopular at the 
time, and prevented his re-election in 1837. The 
passage of the bill he had opjDosed proved, as he 
had predicted, a useless burden to the people ; 
and in 1839 he was again returned to the Legis- 
lature. 

In 1810, in the contest between General Har- 
rison and Martin Van Buren, Mr. Johnson was 
one of the Presidential Electors on the Democratic 
ticket, and canvassed the State for Mr. Yan Bu- 
ren, — not unfrequently meeting upon the stump 
some of the most able orators of the opposition, 
with whom he not only competed successfully, 
but excelled the ablest of them in the force and 



l-i ANDREW JOHXSON. 

power of liis reasoning. In 1841 lie was sent to 
the State Senate from Green and Hawkins coun- 
ties^, and, while in that body, introduced some ex- 
cellent and judicious projects for internal improve- 
ments in Eastern Tennessee. In the Senate, as in 
the lower branch of the Legislature, he proved 
himself a foremost member ; ever advocating all 
that he believed to be right, and fearlessly de- 
nouncing that which he deemed wrong. 

The peoj^le, feeling entire confidence in his 
abihties and appreciating his services, resolved 
to extend his sphere of usefulness ; and in 1843 
he was nominated for Congress in the First Dis- 
ti'ict of Tennessee, embracing seven counties. 
His opponent. Colonel John A. Asken, a United 
States Bank Democrat, a gentleman of promi- 
nence and abihtj, he handsomely defeated, and 
in December of the same year took his seat in 
the House of Representatives at Washington, 
retaining the position, by successive elections, 
until 1853. 

His State was redistricted previous to 1853, 
and that portion in which Mr. Johnson resided 
was so districted as to j)lace him in a district 
having a large Whig majority ; and thus he lest 
his seat in Congress. Gustavus A. Henry, wiio 
was at that time Whig candidate for governor, 
used his influence to effect this party trick, and 
Mr. Johnson, in return, determined to defeat the 
man who had resorted to such a measure to shut 
him out of Congress. After an exciting canvass, 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 15 

Mr. Jolmson was cliosen governor. In 1855 lie 
was re-elected, defeating one of the ablest Whigs 
in the State, Meredith P. Gentry. The duties of 
his administration were performed "VNdthout regard 
to party, and it was confessed that he was one 
of the ablest and most impartial governors ever 
elected in that State. 

In the year 1857, Mr. Johnson was elected by 
the Legislature of Tennessee United States sen- 
ator for the full term of six years ; and he 
brought to this high position the same indomit- 
able energy, talent, and devotion to the p'eople's 
welfare which had distinguished his whole public 
hfe. He was regarded as one of the ablest mem- 
bers of the Senate, and faithfully stood by the 
interest of his State until it joined the Confed- 
eracy, when he stood by the old Union, and was 
appointed Mihtary Governor of Tennessee in 
1862. 

Mr. Johnson was a representative of the jieople. 
Born of the people, and at an early age thrown 
upon his own resources, he grew up amongst the 
people, becoming familiar with their lives, their 
Avrongs, their wants, and their rights. Proud 
that for the knowledge he possessed he was in- 
debted solely to his own exertions, he stood in 
the halls of Congress — Andrew Johnson, Tailor 
and Statesman, the equal of any member of either 
House. Modestly appreciating the dignity of 
his position, he never permitted a scoff at his 
calling, or an indignity at the laboring classes, 



IG ANDREW JOHXSON. 

to pass unrebuked. He, on one occasion, 
said. 

Sir, I do not forget that I am a meclianic. I 
am proud to own it. Neither do I forget that 
Adam was a tailor, and sewed fig-leaves, or that 
our Saviour was the son of a carpenter." 

He had great aversion to aristocracy, and per- 
haps was not without prejudices against gentle- 
men reared in affluence and idleness, arrogating 
to themselves the claim to all respectability in 
the world. On one occasion Jefferson Davis su- 
perciliously asked : " What do you mean by the 
laboring classes ?" Andrew Johnson rephed : 
" Those who earn their bread by the sweat of 
their face, and not by fatiguing their ingenuity." 

He Avas a true Democrat, and a firm believer in 
the sovereignty of the peoj^le : respecting states- 
men and hating politicians — holding that legisla- 
tion was for the many, and not for the benefit of 
any party. He was consistently in favor of curtail- 
ment in governmeiital expenses, and participated 
in nearly every debate upon appropriation bills. 
He introduced resolutions to reduce the salaries 
of members of Congress, and all officers of the 
government, civil, military, and naval. He op- 
posed all unnecessar}' appropriations in Congress, 
from his dislike to " speculations and jobs." 

He was the faithful friend of the poor and of 
the laboring classes, and ever appeared in Con- 
gress as their champion. He introduced the sub- 
ject of homesteads into the House of Eepresenta- 



BIOGRAPHICAL mTRODUCTION". 17 

tives, and advocated the cause with success in 
that branch. He also brought up the subject 
in the Senate, and debated it at great length ; 
but the bill, as passed, was vetoed by Mr. Bu- 
chanan. He proposed an amendment to the 
tariff bill, with a view of taxing capital instead 
of labor. He also opposed the tariff on tea and 
sugar. 

He advocated the bill to refund the fine im- 
posed upon Andrew Jackson by Judge Hall at 
New Orleans (House of Kepresentatives, Jan. 8, 
1844) ; was in favor of the annexation of Texas 
(H. E., January 21, 1845) ; discussed the Oregon 
question, asserting our right to 54° 40', but sus- 
tained the administration in the final settlement 
of the question (H. E., January 31, 1846) ; ad- 
dressed the House on the Mexican question, in 
support of the administration, December ^15, 
1846, January 5, 1847, and August 2, 1847 Top- 
posed the bill establishing the courts of claims 
(H. E., January 6, 1849) ; made an earnest plea 
for the admission of California, and the protec- 
tion of slavery (H. E., June 5, 1850) ; debated the 
Mexican indemnity bill (H. E., January 21, 28, 
1852) ; also the bill for right of way on rail and i 
plank roads (H. E., July 20, 1852) ; made a 
speech on frauds in the Treasury Department 
(H. E., January 13, 1853) ; and another on coin- 
age (H. E., February 2, 1853). 

While in the Senate, in addition to the meas- 
ures referred to more at length in this sketch, he 



'J 



18 AXUKEW, J0JINS02>r. 

opposed tlie increase of tlie regular army at the 
time of the Mormon difficulties (Senate, February 
17, 1857) ; had an earnest debate with Honorable 
John Bell, his colleague, on the Tennessee reso- 
lutions inviting Bell to resign (Senate, February 
23, 24, 1857) ; participated in the debate on the 
admission of Minnesota (Senate, April 6, 1858) ; 
opposed the Pacific Railroad bill, and repudiated 
the idea that it could be imj^osed upon him as a 
Democratic measure (Senate, January 25, 1859) ; 
advocated retrenchment (Senate, January 4 and 
February 12, 1859) ; and warmly defended Ten- 
nessee (Senate, March 26, 1860). 

A native of a slave State, and himself the 
owner of slaves, " acquired by the toil of his own 
hands," he accepted slavery as it existed. Strong 
in the belief that the agitation of the subject 
would eventually lead to the abolition of slavery, 
and the dissolution of the Union would naturally 
follow, he opposed its introduction into the de- 
bates of Congress, and was one of those who dis- 
belieA'ed the right to petition upon the subject, 
giving his reasons in a speech dehvered January 
31st, 1814 : 

" My position is, that Congress has no power 
to interfere with the subject of slavery ; that it is 
an institution local in its character and peculiar 
to the States where it exists, and no other power 
has the right to control it."* f^ 

* Speech in the House of Representatives, June 5th, 1860. 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 19 

He continued true to this belief, and was con- 
sistent in his course to the very last, and in the 
stormy scenes in the Senate, in December, 1860, 
we find him demanding new guaranties for the 
perpetuity of slavery. 

But it needed the severe trial of the crisis of 
1860 and 1861 to develop the strong points in his 
character, and to discover his sincere love for 
and undeviating honesty to the Union. In those 
dark days, when each man was suspicious of his 
neighbor, the country demanded men of strength 
— with comprehension to grasp the great question 
of the day — to discern its bearings upon the 
future; men, "bold to take up, firm to sustain," 
this glorious flag of a commonwealth of States. 
Few who passed through and were tried by the 
fierce ordeal of those terrible hours came forth 
a wiser statesman and more honest patriot than 
Andrew Johnson. 

An ardent admirer of Andrew Jackson, the 
memorable words of that invincible patriot — 
" The Union, it must and shall be preserved" — 
were deeply imprinted on his heart. In a speech, 
delivered in the House of Representatives, De- 
cember 19th, 1846, in support of the policy of 
Mr. Polk's administration in carrviusr the war 
into Mexico, he had said : 

" I am in favor of supporting the administra- 
tion in this act, because I believe it to be right. 
But, sir, I care not whether right or wrong, I am 
for my country alivoys." 



20 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

In December, 1859, he had denounced the John 
Brown raid on Harper's Ferry, and said he be- 
lieved it to be the legitimate fruit of abolition 
teachings. He wished for the punishment of its 
leaders under the Constitution, for a hostile 
entrance into a sovereign State. Under the same 
Constitution, he remained firm in 1860, after the 
election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, 
and feared none of the visions which so disturbed 
the imagination of a majority of the Southern 
senators and representatives. In view of the in- 
creasing excitement at the South, he thought the 
North should be willing to give some new consti- 
tutional guaranties for the protection of slavery, 
and introduced resolutions to that effect, Decem- 
ber 13th, 1860, which were referred to the select 
committee of thirteen. Five days later, in a 
powerful speech, he appealed to the Southern 
senators to remain in the Union, and " fight for 
their constitutional rights on the battlements of the 
Constitution." He did not mean to be driven out 
of the Union, and if anybody must go out, it must be 
those who have violated the instrument that binds 
us together by passing personal liberty bills and 
opposing the execution of the fugitive slave law. 

At the first session of the Thirty-seventh Con- 
gress, in July and August, 1861, he submitted the 
credentials of the senators from West Virginia, 
with appropriate remarks. On the 26th of July, 
1861, he introduced a resolution defining the 
objects of the war, as follows : 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 21 

" Resolved. That the present deplorable civil war 
has been forced upon the country by the disunionists 
of the Southern States, now in revolt against the 
Constitutional Government, and in arms around the 
capital ; that in this national emergency, Congress, 
banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, 
will recollect only its duty to the whole country ; 
that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any 
spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest 
or subjugation, nor for the purpose of authorizing or 
interfering with the rights or established institutions 
of those States, but to defend and maintain the supre- 
macy of the Constitution and all laws made in pur- 
suance thereof, and to preserve the Union, with all 
the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States, 
unimpaired ; that as soon as these objects are accom- 
plished, the war ought to cease," 

This was passed after a long debate, by a vote 
of thirty to five. 

On the 31st of January, 1862, he made a de- 
termined speech on the conduct of Senator 
Bright, and voted for expelling the man who, 
four years before, had administered to him the 
senatorial oath. 

From the outset of the rebellion, the course of 
Mr. Johnson did not please the secessionists of 
Tennessee or of the whole South. Mob law pre- 
vailed, and rufl&ans, full of malice, and with the 
ferocity of brutes, had inaugurated a reign of 
terror, and citizens who remained loyal to the 
Union were subjected to every possible indignity 



22 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

and persecution, f He left Washington in April, 
1861, at the close of the session of Congress, and 
on the 21st of that month he suffered personal 
peril at Ljmchburg, Virginia, and at various 
places along his route. / A price "was set upon his 
head, and personal violence threatened if he re- 
mained in Tennessee. Such seeming indignities 
were the more honorable to him, inasmuch as 
the J arose from his noble devotion to principle, 
when strong men failed and yielded to what they 
feebly claimed to be the real " sentiment" of their 
State in reference to secession. 

On the 19th of June, 1861, while on his way 
to Washington to attend the sj^ecial session of 
Congress, he was the recipient of a warm pubhc 
welcome from the loyal people of Cincinnati. On 
that occasion he delivered an able address, de- 
fining his position, from which we will give a 
short extract, not having space for the entire 
speech : 

" So far as I am concerned,* I am willing to say 
in this connection, that I am proud to stand here 
among you as one of the humble upholders and 
supporters of the stars and stripes that have 
been borne by Washington through a seven 
years' revolution — a bold and manly struggle 
for our independence, and separation from the 
mother country. That is my flag — that flag was 
borne by Washington in triumph. Under it I 
want to live, and under no other. It is that flag 
that has been borne in triumph by the revolu- 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 23 

tionaiy fathers over every battle-field, when our 
brave men, after toil and danger, laid down and 
slept on the cold ground, with no covering but 
the inclement sky, and arose in the morning and 
renewed their march over the frozen ground, as 
the blood trickled from their feet — all to protect 
that banner and bear it aloft triumphantly." 

"While in Washington, he urged upon the Pres- 
ident and Secretary of War the importance and 
the justice of aiding and protecting the Unionists 
of East Tennessee, that Switzerland of America. 
MeauAvhile, in the eastern portion of that State, 
Confederates confiscated Mr. Johnson's slaves ; 
went to his home, drove his sick wife, with her 
child, into the street ; and turned their house, 
built by his own hands, into a hospital and 
barracks. 

In February, 1862, General Grant entered Ten- 
nessee, and won the great victories of Fort Henry 
and Fort Donelson. The subsequent advance of 
General Buell's forces compelled the withdrawal 
of the main body of the insurgents from Western 
and Middle Tennessee, and Nashville was ren- 
dered indefensible. The Confederate govern- 
ment of the State was therefore removed to 
Memphis. The larger portion of the State hav- 
ing been thus recovered, and in the occupation 
of the Federal forces. President Lincoln ap- 
pointed Andrew Johnson military governor, with 
the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers. On 
the 5th of March, 1862, the Sen?,te confirmed the 



24 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

appointment, and Governor Johnson left liis seat 
in that body to enter upon the duties of his new 
position. 

We cannot conceive of a more fitting appoint- 
ment than this. He had borne many perse ml 
indignities ; his family had been mercilessly per- 
secuted : but threats could not intimidate him. 
He promised that the rights of the people should 
be respected, and their wrongs redressed ; that 
the loyal should be honored, and the erring and 
misguided should be welcomed on their return ; 
intelligent ancT conscious treason should be pun- 
ished — boldly proclaiming that traitors should 
be hung. Dauntless but just, determined but 
compassionate, he was the man of all men to rule 
with firmness in such times. The man who 
uttered words like these in a border State, 
amidst anarchy and a fierce civil w'ar, and set to 
work in right earnest to verify his prediction, is 
assuredly no common man. Mr. Johnson, with 
the inspiration of a true man of genius, beheved 
in his own powers, and felt they must ultimately 
prevail. He reached Nashville on the 12th of 
March, in company with Horace Maynard, Em- 
erson Etheridge, and others who had been polit- 
ical exiles. He was enthusiastically received by 
the long suftering Unionists ; and in resjDonse to 
a serenade, addressed the assemblage, which 
address he afterwards pubhshed as " An appeal 
to the people of Tennessee." In this address he 
sketched the history of the secession movement, 



BIOGliAPHlCAL iJSTK(;L)L"OTION. 26 

and showed how the goveriimeut of the Common- 
wealth had been wrecked for the time by its 
leaders. He said that the Government of the 
United States could do no less than guarantee 
Tennessee a republican form of government, and 
that his work was to accomphsh that purpose. 
Later in March, Governor Johnson ordered the 
major and city council of Nashville to take the 
oath of allegiance. Upon theii- refusing so to do, 
their places were proclaimed vacant, and other 
officials were appointed. It was soon understood 
that spoken or written disunionism w^ould subject 
the transgressors to similar justice ; which was 
carried out by incarcerating Turner S. Foster, a 
well-known secessionist, who had been recently 
chosen judge of the Circuit Court of Nashville. 
The clergymen of the city, who, with the excep- 
tion of the Cathohc, not only entertained dis- 
union sentiments, but boldly preached them from 
their pulpits, were requested by the governor to 
take the oath of allegiance. They obeyed the sum- 
mons so far as to appear before Governor Johnson, 
who, perfectly composed, entered the room, shak- 
ing hands famiharly with two or three of them, 
and said : " Well, gentlemen, what is your desire ?" 
They requested a few days to consider the sub- 
ject of signing the paper. The governor granted 
them a week, and said to them : " It seems to me 
that there should be but little hesitation among 
you, gentlemen, about the matter. All that is 
required of you is to sign the oath of allegiance. 

Z 



26 ANDREW JOHNSOX. 

If you are loyal citizens joxi can have no reason 
to refuse to do so. If you are disloyal, and 
working to obstruct the operations of the Gov- 
ernment, it is my duty, as the representative of 
that Government, to see that you are placed in a 
position so that the least possible harm can 
result from your proceedings. You certainly 
cannot reasonably refuse to renew your alle- 
giance to the Government that is now protecting 
you and your famihes and j>roperty." 

At the expiration of a week the clergymen signi- 
fied to Governor Johnson their determination not 
to take the oath, and were sent to the peniten- 
tiary, prior to their removal to General Halleck's 
quarters, to be exchanged for Union prisoners. 

In September, General Buell evacuated all 
North Alabama and Southern Tennessee. Gov- 
ernor Johnson deplored the wholesale desertion 
of the country, and did not concur with General 
Buell as to its propriety. On the 5th the enemy 
recaptured Murfreesboro'. On the 6th Nashville 
was thrown into a state of great excitement, in 
consequence of a current report that General 
Buell had determined upon the evacuation of the 
city. When the rumor reached Governor John- 
son, he earnestly protested against such a course, 
asserting that the city should be defended to the 
last extremity, and then destroyed, to prevent its 
falling into the hands of the enemy. He was so 
disgusted with General Buell's movements, that 
he addressed a letter to President Lincoln on 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 27 

the subject, and recommended his removal. Gen- 
eral Thomas, who was placed in command of the 
city, heartily sustained Governor Johnson's deter- 
mination, and the city was strongly fortified. 
Afterwards General Negley was assigned to the 
command. 

These months proved a dark and perilous time 
for the citizens of Nashville and the safety of 
the provisional government. The State was in- 
fested with guerrillas, and the Confederate forces, 
under Kirby Smith and others, moved northward 
through Tennessee to invade Kentucky. At 
times Nashville was wholly isolated— its cojnmu- 
nications cut off in every direction ; provisions 
became scarce, prices enormously high, and 
much suffering prevailed. Through all these 
trying times Governor Johnson remained hope- 
ful and seK-reliant, inspiring confidence in all 
around him, and reviving courage by his calm- 
ness and determination. Many of the inhab- 
itants of Nashville, whose fathers, husbands, 
brothers, and sons were in arms against the 
Government, left their families to be cared for by 
the authorities. To remedy this, the Governor 
addressed the following circular to such of the 
avowed secessionists of the city as were pecuni- 
arily able to respond : 

State of Tennessee, Executive Department, 
Nashville, August 18, 1S62. 

Sir — There are many wives and helpless children 
in the city of Nashville and county of Davidson, who 



28 ANDREW JOUKSON. 

have been reduced to poverty and wretchedness in 
consequence of their husbands and fathers having 
been forced into the armies of this unholy and nefa- 
rious rebellion. Their necessities have become so 
manifest, and their demands for the necessaries of life 
so urgent, tliat the laws of justice and humanity 
would be violated unless something was done to re- 
lieve their suffering and destitute condition. 

You are therefore requested to contribute the sum of 

dollars, which you will pay over within the next 

five days to James Whitworth, Esq., Judge of the 
County Court, to be by him distributed among these 
destitute families in such manner as may be pre- 
scribed. 

Respectfully, etc., 

Andrew Johnsox, 

Attest : Military Governor. 

Edward H. East, Secretary of State. 

After several attacks upon the city, which were 
gallantly repulsed by General Negley, the Con- 
federates were forced to retire, as General Eose- 
crans, who had relieved General Buell, was 
advancing from the direction of Bowling Green. 
In November the forces under command of the 
latter general entered the city, and found its 
defenders on half-rations, but still fuU of courage 
and determination. In October, Governor John- 
son's family rejoined him, after incurring and es- 
caping numerous perils while on their journey from 
Bristol, in the northeastern part of the State. 

On the 13th of December, Governor Johnson 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTilODUCTION. 29 

issued an order nearly identical with liis circular 
of August 18th, assessing the property of the 
enemies of the Government to the amount of 
sixty thousand dollars, for the support of the 
poor, the widows, and the orphans, made so by 
the war. 

After the retreat of General Bragg from Mur- 
freesboro', in July, 1863, West and Middle Ten- 
nessee were entirely under Federal control. 
Burnside then advanced into East Tennessee 
and drove the insurgents out. A convention was 
held at Nashville, in September, to consider the 
restoration of Tennessee to the Union. Gov- 
ernor Johnson thus expressed his views on that 
question : " Tennessee is not out of the Union — 
never has been, and never will be out. The 
bonds of the Constitution and the Federal power 
will always prevent that. This Government is 
perpetual : j)rovision is made for reforming the 
Government and amending the Constitution, and 
admitting States into the Union ; not for letting 
them out of it." He told the people, whenever 
they desired, in good faith, to restore civil 
authority, they could do so, and a proclamation 
for an election would be issued as speedily as it 
should become practicable to hold one. 

The provisional government created by the 
President continued throughout the year, and on 
the 26th of January, 1864, Governor Johnson 
issued his proclamation for a State election. Up 
to this time about twenty-five thousand Union 



30 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

citizens of Tennessee entered the army, and 
several colored regiments were organized. 

The country will remember the daring im- 
promptu speech in the United States Senate, 
which Senator, now President Johnson, delivered 
in immediate reply to Jefferson Davis, when the 
latter took his farewell, and sought to demon- 
strate the inability of our Government to exe- 
cute its properly constituted will upon the people 
of the States. Senator Johnson then stood 
alone. The disunionists had resolved to adopt 
every conceivable method known to them for the 
purpose of bending the inflexibility of his reso- 
lution to stand by the Union ; but when they 
found that they had wholly failed, they treated 
him with open scorn and contempt. Great is the 
change since that scene in the Senate Chamber, 
when Davis was boldly confronted, answered, 
and denounced by the Tennessee senator ; — the 
former incarcerated within the walls of a prison; 
awaiting his trial for treason, while Johnson is 
to-day the President of the United States. It is 
one of those lessons in the history of nations 
which are too marked to be forgotten. 

Two notable incidents m the history of Andrew 
Johnson, as military governor of Tennessee, illus- 
trative of indomitable will and dauntless courage, 
we think worthy of record. 

A placard was posted in Nashville one morn- 
ing, announcing that Andy Johnson was to be 
shot "' on sight." Friends of the governor as- 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTKODUCTIOISr. 31 

sembled at his house to escort him to the State 
House. " No," said he, " gentlemen, if I am to 
be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of 
the bullet." He walked alone, and with his usual 
deliberation, through the streets to his official 
apartments- on Capitol Hill. Another similar 
story is related : 

He was announced to speak on the exciting 
questions of the day, and loud threats were ut- 
tered that, if he dared to appear, he should not 
leave the hall alive. At the appointed hour he 
ascended the platform, and advancing to the 
desk laid his pistol upon it. He then addressed 
the audience, it is said, in the following language : 
"Fellow-citizens, it is proper, when freemen 
assemble for the discussion of important public 
interests, that every thing should be done decently 
and in order. I have been informed that part of 
the business to be transacted on the present oc- 
casion is the assassination of the individual who 
now has the honor of addressing you. I beg 
respectfully to propose this be the first business 
in order. Therefore, if any man has come here 
to-night for the purpose indicated, I do not say 
to him, let him speak, but let him shoot.". Here 
he paused, with his right hand on his pistol, and 
the other holding open his coat, while he blandly 
surveyed the assembly. After a pause of half a 
minute, he resumed : " Gentlemen, it appears 
that I have been misinformed. I will now pro- 
ceed to address you on the subject that has called 



32 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

US together," wliicli lie did witli all his accus- 
tomed boldness and vivacity, not sparing his 
adversaries, but giving them plenty of pure Ten- 
nessee. 

A man who sets out in a political career with- 
out high birth, fortune, political influence, or 
commercial interest at his back, determined not 
to be intimidated, discouraged, or run down by 
any party, or by all factions in Congress, and 
triumphs solely by his intellectual power over all 
impediments, must have the true elements of 
greatness in his composition. If such a man 
lends the powers that are in him for objects that 
are only noble, generous, grand, and good, he 
will be faithful to himself, and likely to be emi- 
nently useful to his country. Such is the char- 
acter and such the position of President Johnson. 
Few men in the world have risen to greater fame 
from the ranks of poverty and misfortune ; and 
none have ever worn their honors with a more 
becoming dignity, or with greater love for the 
sacred principles of free government. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE CONSTITUTIONALITY AND RIGHTFULNESS OP 
SECESSION. 

The purely sectional issue upon which Abraham 
Lincoln, in November, 1860, was elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, though in accordance 
with the forms of the Constitution, yet seemed 
to a large majority of the people so hostile to its 
spirit, and so threatening in its effect upon the - 
peace of the country, that " it produced an ex- 
citement in the nation, and especially at the 
South, which foreboded all that was fearful and 
terrible in the prospect of the future." To allay 
this excitement so far as possible, and prevent 
the withdrawal of the aggrieved States from the 
Federal Union, all true patriots labored with 
heart and soul, during the anxious and critical 
period which intervened between the election of 
Mr. Lincoln and his inauguration. Among these 
patriots and statesmen, no^ one strove with a 



34 ANDREW JOHNSOX. 

more earnest and indefatigable zeal to avert the 
dissolution of the Union and the horrors of civil 
war than Andrew Johnson. He supported the 
famous Crittenden compromise, in the hope that 
its adoption might promote harmony of feeling 
and quiet the rage of the dark and fearful storm. 
Born in a slave State, a representative, a govern- 
or, and senator from a slave State, his love for 
his section was only surpassed by his attachment 
to his country. Soaring above all narrow and 
local prejiidices, he could truly feel and express 
the poet's inspiring sentiment : 

Wlio would sever freedom's shrine ? 
Who would draw the Invidious line? 
Though by birth one spot be mine, 

Dear is all the rest. 

Dear to me tlie South's fair land, 

Dear the central mountain band, 

■ Dear New England's rocky strand, 

Dear the prairied West. 

But though national in every pulsation of his 
moral being, as became a disciple of the immor- 
tal Jackson, no one defended with more out- 
spoken boldness the rights of his section, or de- 
nounced with more bitter indignation the wicked 
and treasonable designs of Northern abolitionism. 
He repeatedly deprecated the introduction of the 
slavery question into the congressional debates, 
insisting that its consideration belonged alone to 
the States where it existed, and refused even the 
admission of petitions in relation to the initiating 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 35 

subject. In December, 1859, he declared tbe 
murderous John Brown raid upon Harper's 
Ferry to be the natural consequence of abolition 
doctrines, and permitted no opportunity to escape 
of lashing and denouncing the advocates of a 
" higher law" than that of the Constitution. He 
had, however, the sagacity to see that the best 
protection for Southern rights and Southern 
property was beneath the folds of the Federal 
flag ; that the surest way to punish the Northern 
agitators and nuUifiers for their " personal-liberty 
bills" and similar insolent encroachments, was to 
fight them inside of the Union, and never to yield 
a single inch of the jomt and common revolution- 
ary inheritance. He entreated his fellow-senators 
of the South to remain in their places, assuring 
them that, if they thus remained firm and un- 
shaken, Mr. Lincoln could not even organize his 
administration unless by their permission ; and 
much less could he or his party do any direct 
injury to the Southern interests. With prophetic 
vision, he told them that secession would be the 
death of negro slavery, that in the i)last of a sec- 
tional conflict it would be swept away with the 
besom of destruction. Alas ! if his coimsels and 
warnings had been heeded, how much of blood 
and sorrow^ how much of woe and desolation, 
W' ould have been spared from the record of these 
last sad years ! 

These opinions of Mr. Johnson are given at 
length, and with signal ability, in a speech de- 



36 AXDKEW JOHNSOX. 

livered in the Senate, 18th and 19th of Decem- 
ber, 1860, the question being the joint resohition 
introduced by him the 13th of the same month, 
proposing certain constitutional amendments. 
One of these amendments proposed to change 
the mode of electing the President and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States from the electoral col- 
lege to a vote more dii'ectly by the suffrages of 
the people^ "We cannot better please and in- 
struct our readers than by placing before them 
some extracts from this admirable and remark- 
able speech. He said : 

" It is not my purpose, sir, to discuss these prop- 
ositions to amend the Constitution in detail to-day,, 
and I sliall say but httle move in reference to them, 
and to their practical operation ; but as we are now, 
as it were, involved in revolution (for there is a 
revolution, in fact, upon the country), I think it 
behooves every man, and especially every one occu- 
pying' a public place, to indicate, in some manner, 
Ms opinions and sentiments in reference to the ques- 
tions that ag-itate and distinct the public mind. I 
shall be fi-ank on this occasion in g-iving- my views 
and taking my position, as I have always been upon 
questions that involve the public interest. I believe 
it is the imperative duty of Cong^ress to make some 
effort to save the country from inrrpending disso- 
lution ; and he that is unwilling- to make an effort 
to preserve the Union, or, in other words, to p-reserve 
iiie Constitution, and the Union as an incident resui&» 
ing from the preservation of the Constitution^ is tiji- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 37 

worthy of public confidence, and the respect and 
gi-atitude of the American people. 

" In most that I shall say on this occasion, I shall 
not differ very essentially from my Southern friends. 
The difference will consist in the mode and manner 
by which this great end is to be accomplished. Some 
of our Southern friends think that secession is the 
mode by which these ends can be accomplished ; 
that if the Union. cannot be preserved in its spirit, by 
secession they will get those rights secured and per- 
petuated that they have failed to obtain within the 
Union. 

" I am opposed to secession. I believe it is no 
remedy for the evils complained of Instead of act- 
ing with that division of my Southern friends who 
take ground for secession, I shall take other grounds 
while I try to accomplish the same end. I think that 
this battle ought to be fought, not outside but inside 
of the Union, and upon the battlements of the Con- 
stitution itself. I am unwilling voluntarily to walk 
out of the Union, which has been the result of a Con- 
stitution made by the patriots of the Revolution. 
They formed the Constitution ; and this Union that is 
so much spoken of, and which all of us are so de- 
sirous to preserve, grows out of the Constitution ; 
and I repeat, I am not willing to walk out of a Union 
growing out of the Constitution that was formed by 
the patriots and soldiers of the Eevolution. So far 
as I am concerned, and I believe I may speak with 
some degree of confidence for the people of my State, 
we intend to fight that battle inside and not outside 
of the Union ; and if anybody must go out of the 
Union, it must be those who violate it. We do mot 



38 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

intend to go out. It is our Constitution ; it is our 
Union, growing out of the Constitution ; and we do 
not intend to be driven from it, or out of the Union. 
Those who have violated the Constitution, either in 
the passage of Avhat are denominated personal-liberty 
bills, or by their refusal to execute the fugitive-slave 
law, they, having' violated the instrument that binds 
us together, must go out, and not we. If we violate 
the Constitution by going out ourselves, I do not 
think we can go before the country with the same 
force of opinion that we shall if we stand inside of 
the Constitution, demanding a compliance with its 
provisions and its guaranties, or, if need be, as I 
think it is, demanding additional securities. We 
should make that demand inside of the Constitution, 
and in the manner and mode pointed out by the in- 
strument itself. Then we keep ourselves in the 
right ; we put our adversary in the wrong ; and 
though it may take a little longer, we take the 
right means to accomplish an end that is right in 
itself. 

" I know that sometimes we talk about compro- 
mises. I am not a compromiser nor a conservative, 
in the usual acceptation of those terms. I have 
been generally considered radical, and I do not come 
forward to-day, in any thing that I shall say or pro- 
pose, asking for any thing to be done upon the prin- 
ciple of compromise. If we ask for any thing, it 
should be for that which is right and reasonable in 
itself. If it be right, those of whom we ask it, upon 
the great principle of right, are bound to grant it. 
Compromise ! I know, in the commo!i acceptation of 
the term, it is to agree upon certain propositions, in 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 39 

which some things are conceded on one side, and 
ethers conceded on the other. I shall g-o for enact- 
ments by Congress, or for amendments to the Consti- 
tution, upon the principle that they are right, and 
upon no other ground. I am not for compromising 
right with wrong. If we have no right, we ought not 
to demand it. If we are in the wrong, they should 
not grant us what we ask. I approach this momen- 
tous subject on the great principles of right, asking 
for nothing and demanding nothing but what is right 
in itself, and what every right-minded man, and a 
right-minded community, and a right-minded people, 
who wish for the preservation of this Government, 

will be disposed to grant. 

***** 

" Sir, if the doctrine of secession is to be carried out 
upon the mere whim of a State, this Government is 
at an end. I am as much opposed to a strong, or 
what may be called by some a consolidated Govern- 
ment, as it is possible for a man to be ; but while I 
am greatly opposed to that, I want a Government 
strong enough to preserve its own existence ; that 
will not fall to pieces by its own weight, or whenever 
a little dissatisfaction takes place in one of its mem- 
bers. If the States have a right to secede at will 
.and pleasure, for real or imaginary evils or oppres- 
sions, I repeat again, this Government is at an end ; 
it is not stronger than a rope of sand ; its own weight 
will crumble it to pieces, and it cannot exist. Not- 
withstanding this doctrine may suit some who are en- 
gaged in this perilous and impending crisis that is 
now upon us, duty to my country, duty to my State, 
and duty to my kind, require me to avow a doctrine 



40 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

that I believe will result in the preservation of the 
Government, and to repudiate one that I believe will 
result in its overthrow, and the consequent disasters 
to the people of the United States. 

" If a State can secede at will and pleasure, and this 
doctrine is maintained, why, I ask, on the other hand, 
as argued by Mr. Madison in one of his letters, can- 
not a majority of the States combine and reject a 
State out of the Confederacy ? Have a majority of 
these States, under the compact that they have made 
with each other, the right to combine and reject any 
one of the States from the Confederacy ? They have 
no such right ; the compact is reciprocal. It was 
ratified without reservation or condition, and it was 
ratified ' in toto and forever ;' such is the language of 
James Madison ; and there is but one way to get out 
of it without the consent of the parties, and that is 
by revolution. 

jfi Tp* 3fl ^ 5JC 

" I know tliat the term, to ' coerce a State,' is used 
in an ad captandimi manner. It is a sovereignty that 
is to be crushed I How is a State in the Union ? 
What is her connection with it ? All the connection 
she has with the other States is that which is agreed 
upon in the compact between the States. I do not 
know whether you may consider it in the Union or 
out of the Union, or whether you simply consider it a 
connection or a disconnection Avith the other States ; 
but to the extent that a State nullifies or sets aside 
any law or any provision of the Constitution, to that 
extent it has dissolved its connection, and no more. 
I think the States that have passed their personal- 
liberty bills, in violation of the Constitution of t]\e 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 41 

United States, coming in contact with the fu,^itive- 
slave law, to that extent have dissolved their connec- 
tion, and to that extent it is revolution. But because 
some of the free States have passed laws violative of 
the Constitution ; because they have, to some extent, 
dissolved their connection with this Government, does 
tliat justify us of the South in following that bad ex- 
ample ? Because they have passed personal-liberty 
bills, and have, to that extent, violated the compact 
which is reciprocal, shall we turn round, on the other 
hand, and violate the Constitution by coercing them 
to a compliance with it ? Will we do so ? 

" Then I come back to the starting point ; let us 
stand in the Union and upon the Constitution ; and 
if anybody is to leave this Union, or violate its guar- 
anties, it shall be those who have taken the initiative, 
and passed their personal-liberty bills. I am in the 
Union, and intend to stay in it. I intend to hold on 
to the Union, and the guaranties under which this 
Union has grown ; and I do not intend to be driven 
from it, nor out of it, by their unconstitutional enact- 
ments. 

" Then, Mr. President, suppose, for instance, that a 
fugitive is arrested in the State of Vermont to-mor- 
row, and under the personal-liberty bill of that State, 
or the law — I do not remember its precise title now — 
w'hich prevents, or is intended to prevent, the faithful 
execution of the fugitive-slave law, Vermont under 
takes to rescue him, and prevent the enforcement of 
the law : what is it ? It is nullification ; it is resist- 
ance to the laws of the United States made in con- 
formity with the Constitution ; it is rebellion ; and it 
is the duty of the President of the United States to en- 



42 AJs^DllEW JOHNSON. 

force the law, at all hazards and to the last extremity. 
And if the Federal Government fails or refuses to exe- 
cute the laws made in conformity with the Constitu- 
tion, and those States persist in their violation and let 
those unconstitutional acts remain upon their statute- 
books, and carry them into practice ; if the Govern 
ment, on the one hand, fails to execute the laws of the 
United States, and those States, by their enactments, 
violate them on the other, the Government is at an 
end, and the parties are all released from the compact 

;{: :{c 9|c ^ * 

" I think it will be determined by the courts and by 
the judgment of the country, that the acts passed in 
1850 and 1858 by the Legislature of Vermont are a 
violation, a gross, palpable violation of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. It is clear and conclusive 
to my mind, that a State passing an unconstitutional 
act, intended to impede or to prevent the execution 
of a law passed by the Congress of the United States 
which is constitutional, is thereby placed, so far as 
the initiative is concerned, in a state of rebellion. It 
is an open act of nullification. I am not aware that 
there has been any attempt in Vermont to wrest any 
persons out of the hands of the officers of tlie United 
States, or to imprison or to fine any person under the 
operation of this law ; but the passage of such an 
act is to initiate rebellion. I think it comes in con- 
flict directly with the spirit and letter of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and to that extent is an 
act of nullification, and places the State iu open rebel- 
lion to the United States. 

***** 

" President Washington thought there was power 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 43 

in this Government to execute its laws ; he con- 
sidered the militia the arm}^ of the Constitution ; and 
he refers to this Union as being inseparable. This 
is the way that the laws were executed by the F'ather 
of his Country, the man who sat as president of the 
convention that made the Constitution. Here was 
resistance interposed — opposition to the execution of 
the laws ; and George Washington, then President 
of tlie United States, went in person at the head of 
the militia ; and it showed his sagacity, his correct 
comprehension of men, and the effect that an imme- 
diate movement of that kind would have upon them. 
He ordered fifteen thousand of his countrymen to the 
scene of action, and went there in person, and staj'^ed 
there till he was satisfied that the insurrection was 
quelled. That is the manner in which George "Wash- 
ington put down rebellion. That is the manner in 
which he executed the laws. 

" Here, then, we find General Washington exe- 
cuting the law, in 1795, against a portion of the 
citizens of Pennsylvania who rebelled ; and, I repeat 
the question, where is the difference between exe- 
cuting the law upon a part^and upon the whole? 
Suppose the whole of Pennsjdvania had rebelled and 
resisted the excise law ; had refused to pay taxes on 
distilleries ; was it not as competent and as consti- 
tutional for General Washington to have executed 
the law against the whole as against a part ? Is 
there any difference ? Governmental affairs must be 
practical as well as our own domestic aifairs. You 
may make nice metaphysical distinctions between the 
practical operations of Government and its theory ; 
3^ou may refine upon what is a State, and point out 



44 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

a difiereiice between a State and a portion of a State ; 
but what is it when you reduce it to practical oper- 
ation, and square it by common sense ? 

"In 1832, resistance was interposed to laws of 
the United States in another State. An ordinance 
was passed by South Carolina, assuming to act as 
a sovereign State, to nullify a law of the United 
States. In 1833, the distinguished man who filled 
the executive chair, who now lies in his silent grave, 
loved and respected for his virtue, his honor, his in- 
tegrity, his patriotism, his undoubted courage, and 
his devotion to his kind, with an eye single to the 
promotion of his country's best interests, issued the 
proclamation, extracts from which I have already 
presented. He was sworn to support the Constitu- 
tion, and to see that the laws were faithfully exe- 
cuted ; and he fulfilled the obligation. He took all 
the steps necessary to secure the execution of the 
law, and he would have exectited it by the power 
of the Government if the point of time had arrived 
when it was necessary to resort to that power. We 
can see that he acted upon principles similar to those 
acted upon by General Washington. He took the 
precaution of ordering a force there suflScient for the 
purpose of enabling him to say effectually to the re- 
bellions, and those who were interposing opposition 
to the execution of the laws, ' The laws which are 
made according to the Constitution, the laws that 
provide for the collection of the revenue to sustain 
this Government, must be enforced, and the revenue 
must be collected. It is a part of the compact ; it 
is a part of the engagement you have undertaken to 
perform, and you of your own will have no power or 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 45 

authority to set it aside.' The duties were collected ; 
the law was enforced ; and the Government went on. 
In his proclamation he made a powerful appeal. He 
told them what would be done ; and it would have 
been done, as certain as God rules on high, if the 
time had arrived which made it necessary. 

"Then we see where General WashinQ:ton stood. 
and where General Jackson stood. Now, how does 
the present case stand ? The time has come when 
men should speak out. Duties are mine ; conse- 
quences are God's. I intend to discharge mj'- duty, 
and I intend to avow my understanding of the Con- 
stitution and the laws of the country. Have we no 
authority or power to execute the laws in the State 
of South Carolina as well as in Vermont and Penn- 
sylvania ? I think we have. As I before said, al- 
though a State may, by an ordinance, or by a resolve, 
or by an act of any other kind, declare that they ab- 
solve their citizens from all allegiance to this Govern- 
ment, it does not release them from the compact. The 
compact is reciprocal ; and they, in coming into it, 
undertook to perform certain duties and abide by the 
laws made in conformity with the compact. Now, 
sir, what is the Government to do in South Carolina ? 
If South Carolina undertakes to drive the Federal 
courts out of that State, the Federal Government has 
the right to hold those courts there. She may attempt 
to exclude the mails, yet the Federal Government has 
the right to establish post-offices and post-roads, and 
to carry the mails there. She may resist the collec- 
tion of revenue at Charleston, or any other point that 
the Government has provided for its collection ; but 
the Government has the right to collect it and to 



46 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

enforce the law. She may undertake to take posses- 
sion of the property belonp^ing to the Government, 
whicli was originally ceded by the State, but tlie 
Federal Government has the right to provide the 
means for retaining possession of that property. If 
she makes an advance either to dispossess the Gov- 
ernment of that which it has purchased, or to resist 
the execution of the revenue laws, or of our judicial 
system, or the carrying of the mails, or the exercise 
of any other power conferred on the Federal Govern- 
^ ment, she puts herself in the wrong, and it will be 
the duty of the Government to see that the laws are 
faithfully executed. 

^^ J|C *fC 7fi ^T^ ^* 

" We are told that certain States will go out and 
tear this accursed Constitution into fragments, and 
drag the pillars of this mighty edifice down upon us, 
and involve us all in one common ruin. Will the 
Border States submit to such a threat ? No. But if 
they do not come into the movement, the pillars of 
this stupendous fabric of human freedom and great- 
ness and goodness are to be pulled down, and all will 
be involved in one common ruin. Such is the threat- 
ening language used. 'You shall come into our Con- 
federacy, or we will coerce you to the emancipation 
of 3'our slaves.' That is the language which is held 
towards us. 

" There are many ideas afloat about tliis threat- 
ened dissolution, and it is time to speak out. The 
question arises, in reference to the protection and pre- 
servation of the institution of slavery, whether dis- 
solution is a remedy, or will give to it protection. I 
avow here, to-day, that if I were an Abolitionist, and 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 47 

wanted to accomplish the overthrow and abolition of 
the institution' of shavery in the Southern States, tho 
first step that I would take would be to break tlie 
bonds of this Union, and dissolve this Government. 
I believe the continuance of slavery depends upon the 
preservation of this Union, and a compliance with 
all the guaranties of the Constitution. I believe an 
interference with it will break up the Union ; and I 
believe a dissolution of the Union will, in the end, 
though it may be some time to come, overthrow the 
institution of slavery. Hence we find so many in 
the North who desire the dissolution of these States, 
as the most certain, and direct, and effectual means 
of overthrowing the institution of slavery. 

" What protection would it be to us to dissolve 
this Union ? What protection would it be to us to 
convert this nation into two hostile powers, the one 
warring with the other ? Whose property is at 
stake? Whose interest is endangered? Is it not 
the property of the border States ? Suppose Canada 
were moved down upon our border, and the two sep- 
arated sections, then different nations, were hostile : 
what would the institution of slavery be worth on 
the border? Every man who has common sense will 
see that the institution would take up its march and 
retreat, as certainly and as unerringly a^.--getterat~ 
laws can operate. Yes ; it would commence to re- 
treat the very moment this Union was divided into 
two hostile powers, and you made the line between 
the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States the line 
of division. 

" Then, what remedy do we get for the institution 
of slavery ? Must we keep up a standing army ? 



48 AJSDKEVV JUii:N'SON. 

Must we keep up forts bristling with jyms along the 
whole border ? This is a question to be considered, 
one that involves the future ; and no step should be 
takei^ without mature reflection. Before this Union 
is dissolved and broken up, we in Tennessee, as one 
of the Slave States, want to be consulted ; we want 
to know what protection we are to have ; whether 
we are simply to be made outposts and guards to 
protect the property of others, at the same time that 
we sacrifice and lose our own. We want to under- 
stand this question. 

" Again : if there is one division of the States, will 
there not be more than one ? I heard a senator say, 
the other day, that he would rather see this Govern- 
ment separated into thirty-three fractional parts than 
to see it consolidated ; but when you once begin to 
divide, when the first division is made, who can tell 
when the next will be made ? When these States are 
all turned loose, and a difierent condition of things is 
presented, with complex and abstruse interests to be 
considered, and weighed, and understood, what com- 
binations may take place no one can tell. I am op- 
posed to the consolidation of government, and I am 
as much for the reserved rights of States as any one ; 
but, rather than see this Union divided into thirty- 
three petty governments, with a little prince in one, 
a potentate in another, a little aristocracy in a third, 
a little democracy in a fourth, and a I'epublic some- 
where else ; a citizen not being able to pass fi'om one 
State to another without a passport or a commission 
from his govei'nnient ; with quarrelling and warring 
amongst the little petty powers, which would result 
in anarchy ; I would rather see this Government to- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 49 

day — I proclaim it here in my place — converted into 
a consolidated government. It would be better for 
the American people ; it would be better for our 
kind ; it would be better for humanity ; better for 
Christianity ; better for all that tends to elevate and 
ennoble man, than breaking up this splendid, this 
magnificent, this stupendous fabric of human govern- 
ment, the most perfect that the world ever saw, and 
which has succeeded thus far without a parallel iu 
the history of the world. 

" I throw these out as considerations. There will 
be various projects and various combinations made. 
Memphis is now connected with Norfolk, in the Old 
Dominion ; Memphis is connected with Baltimore 
within two days. Here is a coast that lets us out to 
the commerce of the world. When we look around 
in the four States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, 
and Maryland, there are things about which our mem- 
ories, our attachments, and our associations linger 
with pride and pleasure. Go down into the Old Do- 
minion ; there is the place where, in 1181, Cornwallis 
surrendered his sword to the immortal Washington. 
In the bosom of her soil are deposited her greatest 
and best sons. Move along in that trail, and there 
we find Jefferson, and Madison, and Monroe, and a 
long list of worthies. 

" We come next to old North Carolina, my native 
State, God bless her 1 She is my mother. Though 
she was not my cherishing mother, to use the lan- 
guage of the classics, she is the mother whom I love, 
and I cling to her with undying afiection, as a son 
should cling to an affectionate mother. We find 

3 



50 AXDKEW JOHNSON. 

Macon, who was associated with our early history^ 
deposited in her soil. Go to King-'s Mountain, on her 
borders, and you there find the place on which the 
battle was fought that turned the tide of the Revolu- 
tion. Yes, within her borders the signal battle was 
foua;lit that turned the tide which resulted in the snr- 
render of Cornwallis at Yorktown, in the Old Domin- 
ion. 

" Travel on a little further, and we get back to Ten- 
nessee. I shall be as modest as I can in reference to 
her, but she has some associations that make her dear 
to the people of the United States. In Tennessee we 
have our own illustrious Jackson. There he sleeps 
— that Jackson who issued his proclamation in 1833, 
and saved this Government. We have our Polk and 
our Grundy, and a long list of others who are worthy 
of remembrance. 

" And who lie in Kentucky ? Y'our Hardings, your 
Boones, your Roanes, your Clays, are among the 
dead ; your Crittenden among the living. All are 
identified and associated with the history of the 
country. 

" Maryland has her Carroll of Carrollton, and a 
long list of worthies, who are embalmed in the hearts 
of the American people. And 3'ou are talking about 
breaking up this Republic, with this cluster of asso- 
ciations, these ties of affection, around you. May we 
not expect that some means may be devised by which 
it can be held together ? 

" Here, too, in the centre of the Republic, is the 
seat of government, which was founded by Wash- 
ington, and bears his immortal name. Who dare ap- 
propriate it exclusively ? It is within the borders of 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 51 

the States I have enumerated, in whose limits are 
found the graves of Washington, of Jackson, of Polk, 
of Clay. From them is it supposed that we will be 
torn away ? No, sir ; we will cherish these endearing 
associations with the hope, if this Republic shall be 
broken, that we may speak words of peace and recon- 
ciliation to a distracted, a divided, I may add, a mad- 
dened people. Angry waves may be lashed into fury 
on the one hand ; on the other blustering winds may 
rage ; but we stand immovable upon our basis, as on 
our own native mountains — presenting their craggy 
brows, their unexplored caverns, their summits ' rock- 
ribbed, and ancient as the sun,' — we stand speaking 
peace, association, and concert to a distracted Re- 
public. 

" But, Mr. President, will it not be well, before we 
break up this great Government, to inquire what kind 
of a government this new government in the South is 
to be, with which we are threatened unless we involve 
our destinies with this rash and precipitate move- 
ment ? What intimation is there in reference to its 
character ? Before my State and those States of 
which I have been speaking, go into a Southern or 
Northern confederacy, ought they not to have some 
idea of the kind of government that is to be formed ? 
What are the intimations in the South in reference to 
the formation of a new government ? The language 
of some speakers is, that they want a Southern gov- 
ernment obliterating all State lines — a government of 
consolidation. It is alarming and distressing to en- 
tertain the proposition here. What ruin and disaster 
would follow, if we are to have a consolidated gov- 
ernment here ! But the idea is afloat and current in 



62 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

the South that a Southern government is to be estab- 
Jisliod, in the language of some of the speakers in the 
State of Georgia, ' obliterating all State lines.' Is 
that the kind of entertainment to which the people are 
to be invited ? Is that the kind of government under 
which we are to pass ; and are we to be forced . to 
emancipate our slaves unless we go into it ? Another 
suggestion in reference to a Southern government is, 
that we shall have a Southern Confederacy of great 
strength and power, with a constitutional provision 
preventing any State from changing its domestic in- 
stitutions without the consent of three-fourths, or some 
great number to be fixed upon. Is that the kind of 
government under which we want to pass ? I avow 
here, that, so far as I am concerned, I will never enter, 
witn my consent, any government. North or South, 
less republican, less democratic, than the one under 
which we now live. 

" If there are grievances, why cannot we all go to- 
gether, and write them down, and point them out to 
our Northern friends, after we have agreed on what 
those grievances are, and say : ' Here is what we de- 
mand ; here our wrongs are enumerated ; upon these 
terms we have agreed ; and now, after we have given 
you a reasonable time to consider these additional 
guaranties in order to protect ourselves against these 
wrongs, if j^ou refuse them, then, having made an 
honorable effort, having exhausted all other means, 
we may declare the association to be broken up, and 
we may go into an act of revolution.' We can then 
say to them : ' You have refused to give us guaran- 
ties that we think are needed for the protection of 



SERVICES AND SrEECHES. 53 

our institutions and for the protection of our other 
interests.' When they do this, I will go as far as he 
who g-oes the furthest. 

" I tell them here to-da}'-, if tliey do not do it, Ten- 
nessee will be found standing as firm and unyielding 
in her demands for those guaranties, in the way a 
State should stand, as any other State in this Con- 
federacy. She is not quite so belligerent now. She 
is not making quite so much noise. She is not as 
blustering as Sempronius was in the council in Addi- 
son's play of ' Cato,' who declared that his ' voice 
was still for Avar.' There was another character 
there, Lucius, who was called upon to state what his 
opinions were ; and he replied that he must confess 
his thoughts "were turned on peace ; but when the 
extremity came, Lucius, who was deliberative, who 
was calm, and whose thoughts were upon peace, was 
found true to the interests of his country. He proved 
himself to be a man and a soldier ; while the other 
was a traitor and a coward. We will do our duty ; 
we will stand upon principle, and defend it to the last 
extremity. 

" We do not think, though, that we have just cause 
for going out of the. Union now. We have just cause 
of complaint ; but we are for remaining in the Uiiion, 
and fighting the battle like men. We do not intend 
to be cowardly, and turn our backs on our own 
camps. We intend to stay and fight the battle here 
upon this consecrated gi'ound. Why should we re- 
treat ? Because Mr. Lincoln has been elected Presi- 
dent of the United States ? Is this any cause why 
we should retreat ? Does not every man, senator or 
otherwise, know, that if Mr. Breckinridge had been 



54 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

elected we should not be to-day for dissolving the 
CJnion ? Tiien what is tho issue ? It is because we 
have not got our man. If we had got our man, we 
should not have been for breaking up the Union ; but 
as Mr. Lincoln is elected, we are for breaking up the 
Union ! I say no. Let us show ourselves men, and 
men of courage. 

" How has Mr. Lincoln been elected, and how liave 
Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Douglas been defeated ? 
By the votes of the American people, cast according 
to the Constitution and the forms of law, though it 
has been upon a sectional issue. It is not the first 
time in our history that two candidates have been 
elected from the same section of country. General 
Jackson and Mr. Calhoun were elected on the same 
ticket ; but nobody considered that cause of dissolu- 
tion. They were from the South. I oppose the sec- 
tional spirit that has produced the election of Lincoln 
and Hamlin, yet it has been done according to the 
Constitution and according to the forms of law. I 
believe we have the power in our own hands, and I 
am not willing to shrink from the responsibility of 
exercising that power. 

" How has Lincoln been elected, and upon what 
basis does he stand ? A minority President by 
/ nearly a million votes ; but had the election taken 
place upon the plan proposed in m}'' amendment of 
the Constitution, by districts, he would have been 
this day defeated. But it has been done according 
to the Constitution and according to law. I am for 
abiding by the Constitution ; and in abiding by it I 
want to maintain and retain my place here, and put 
down Mr. Lincoln, and drive back his advances upon 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 55 

Sontlicrn institutions, if he designs to make any. 
Have we not got the brakes in our hands ? Have 
wo not got the power ? We have. Let South Caro- 
lina send her senators back ; let all the senators 
come ; and on the fourth of March next we shall 
have a majority of six in this body against him. 
This successful sectional candidate, who is in a mi- 
nority of a million, or nearly so, on the popular vote, 
cannot make his Cabinet on the fourth of March next, 
unless the Senate will permit him. 

"Am I to be so great a coward as to retreat from 
duty ? I will stand here and meet the encroach- 
ments upon the institutions of my country at the 
threshold ; and as a man, as one that loves my coun- 
try and my constituents, I will stand here and resist 
all encroachments and advances. Here is the place 
to stand. Shall I desert the citadel, and let the en- 
emy come in and take possession ? No. Can Mr. 
Lincoln send a foreign minister, or even a consul, 
abroad, unless he receives the sanction of the Senate ? 
Can he appoint a postmaster whose salary is over a 
thousand dollars a year without the consent of the 
Senate ? Shall we desert our posts, shrink from our 
responsibilities, and permit Mr. Lincoln to come with 
his cohorts, as we consider them, from the North, to 
carry off every thing ? Are we so cowardly that 
now that we are defeated, not conquered, we shall 
do this ? Yes, we are defeated according to the 
forms of law and the Constitution ; but the real vic- 
tory is ours — the moral force is with us. Are we 
going to desert that noble and that patriotic band 
who have stood by us at the North, who have stood 
by us upon principle, and upon the Constitution ' 



56 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



« 



They stood by us, and fought the battle upon prin- 
ciple ; and now that we have been defeated, not con- 
quered, are we to turn our backs upon them and 
leave them to their fate ? I, for one, will not. I in- 
tend to stand by them. How many votes did we get 
in the North ? We got more votes in the North 
against Lincoln than the entire Southern States cast. 
Are they not able and faithful allies? They are ; 
and now, on account of this temporary defeat, are 
we to turn our backs upon them and leave them to 
their fate ? 

" We find, when all the North is summed up, that 
Mr. Lincoln's majority there is only about two hun- 
dred thousand on the popular vote ; and when that 
is added to the other vote cast throughout the Union, 
he stands to-day in a minority of nearly a million 
votes. What, then, 'is necessary to be done ? To 
stand to our posts like men, and act upon principle ; 
stand for the country ; and in four years from this 
day, Liifboln and his administration will be turned 
out — the worst-defeated and broken-down party that 
ever came into power. It is an inevitable result 
from the combination of elements that now exist. 
What cause, then, is there to break up the Union ? 
W^hat reason is there for deserting our posts, and de- 
stroying this greatest and best government that was 
ever spoken into existence ? 

" I voted against him ; I spoke against him ; I spent, 
my money to defeat him ; — but still I love my coun- 
try ; I love the Constitution ; I intend to insist upon 
its guaranties.' There, and there alone, I intend to 
plant myself, with the confident hope and belief that 
if the Union remains together, in less than four years 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 57 

the now triumphant party will be overthrown. In 
less time, I have the hope and belief that we shall 
unite and agree upon our grievances here and de- 
mand their redress, not as suppliants at the footstool 
of power, but as parties to a g-reat compact ; we shall 
say that we want additional guaranties, and that 
they are necessary to the preservation of this Union ; 
and then, when they are refused deliberately and 
calml}', if we cannot do better, let the South go to- 
g'ether, and let the North go together, and let us 
have a division of this Government without the shed- 
ding of blood, if such a thing be possible ; let us 
have a division of the property ; let us have a divi- 
sion of the navy ; let us have a division of the army, 
and of the public lands. Let it be done in peace, and 
in a spirit that should characterize and distinguish 
this people. I believe we can obtain all our guaran- 
ties. I believe there is too much good sense, too 
much intelligence, too much patriotism, too much 
capability, too much virtue, in the great mass of peo- 
ple to permit this Government to be overthrown. 

" I have an abiding faith, I have an unshaken con- 
fidence, in man's capability to govern himself. I will 
not give up this Government that is now called an 
experiment, which some ai'e prepared to abandon for 
a constitutional monarchy. No ; I intend to stand 
by it, and I entreat every man throughout the nation 
who is a patriot, and who lias seen, and is compelled 
to admit, the success of this great experiment, to 
come forward, not in heat, not in fanaticism, not in 
haste, not in precipitanc}'', but in deliberation, in full 
view of all that is before us, in the spirit of brotherly 
love and fraternal afiection, and rally around the 

8* 



58 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

altar of our common country, and lay the Constitution 
upon it as our last libation, and swear by our God, 
and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution 
shall be saved and the Union preserved. Yes, in the 
laiig-uage of the departed Jackson, let us exclaim 
that the Union, ' the Federal Union, it must be pre- 
served.' 

" Are we likely, when we get to ourselves. North 
and South, to sink into brotherly love ? Are we 
likely to be as harmonious in that condition as some 
suppose ? I am sometimes impressed with the force 
of Mr. Jefferson's remark, that we may as well keep 
the North to quarrel with ; for if we have no North 
to quarrel with, we shall quarrel among ourselves. 
We are a sort of quarrelsome, pugnacious people ; 
and if we cannot get a quarrel from one quarter, we 
shall have it from another ; and I would rather quar- 
rel a little now with the North than be quarrelling 
with ourselves. What did a senator say here in the 
American Senate, onl}'- a few days ago, because the 
governor of a Southern State was refusing to con- 
vene the Legislature to hasten this movement that 
was going on throughout the South, and because he 
objected to that course of conduct ? The question 
was asked, if there was not some Texan Brutus that 
would rise up and rid the country of the hoary-headed 
traitor 1 This is the language that a senator used. 
This is the way we begin to speak of Southern gov- 
ernors. Yes ; to remove an obstacle in our way, we 
must have a modern Brutus, who will go to the capital 
of a State and assassinate a governor to accelerate 
the movement. If we are so unscrupulous in refer- 
ence to ourselves, and in reference to the means we 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 59 

are willing- to employ to consummate this dissolution, 
then it does not look very much like harmony aniong 
ourselves after we get out of it. 

" Mr. President, I have said much more than I antici- 
pated when I commenced, and I have spoken more 
at length than a regard for my ovi^n health and 
strength would have allowed ; but if there is any 
effort of mine that would preserve this Governmeiit 
till there is time to think, till there is time to con- 
sider, even if it cannot be preserved any longer ; if 
that end could be secured by making a sacrifice of 
my existence and offering up my blood, I would be 
willing to consent to it. Let us patise in this mad 
career; let us hesitate. Let us consider well what we 
are doing before we make a movement. I believe 
that, to a certain extent, dissolution is going to take 
place. I say to the North, you ought to come up ip 
the spirit which should characterize and control the 
North on this question; and you ought to give those 
indications of good faith that will approach what' the 
South demands. It will be no sacrifice on your part. 
It is no snppliancy on ours, but simply a demand of 
right. What concession is there in doing right? 
Then, come forward. We have it in our power — yes, 
this Congress here to-day has it in its power to save 
this Union, even after South Carolina has gone out. 
Will they not do it ? You can do it. Who is willing 
to take the dreadful alternative without making an 
honorable effort ' to save this Government ? This 
Congress has it in its power to-day to arrest this 
thing, at least for a season, until there is time to con- 
sider about it, until we can act discreetly and pru- 
dently, and I believe arrest it altogether. 



60 ANDREW J0USti02J. 

" Shall we give all this up to the Vandals and the 
Goths ? Shall we shrink from our duty, and desert 
the Government as a sinking ship, or shall we stand 
by it ? I, for one, will stand here until the high be- 
hest of my constituents demands of me to desert my 
post ; and instead of laying hold of the columns of 
this fabric and pulling it down, though I may not be 
much of a prop, I will stand with my shoulder sup- 
porting the edifice as long as human effort can do it. 

" In saying what I have said on this occasion, Mr. 
President, I have had in view the duty that I owe to 
my constituents, to my children, to myself. Without 
regard to consequences, I have taken my position ; 
and when the tug comes, when Greek shall meet 
Greek, and our rights are refused after all bonoi-able 
means have been exhausted, then it is that I will 
perish in the last breach ; yes, in the language of the 
patriot Emmet, ' I will dispute every inch of ground; 
I will burn every blade o-f grass ; and the last in- 
trerichment of Freedom shall be my grave.' Then, 
let us stand by the Constitution ; and in preserving 
the Constitution we shall save the Union; and in 
saving the Union, we save this the g^i-eatest Govern- 
ment on earth." 



SEEVICES AND SPEECHES. 61 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE HOMESTEAD BILL. 

The gi'eat triumpli of President Johnson's con- 
gressional career is liis advocacy and ultimately 
successful championship of the famous Home- 
stead Bill. Thoughtful men had for years seen 
the evil and condemned the policy of selling the 
public domain in large sections to speculators 
and monopolists, who merely held them for their 
private and selfish gains. This feeling eventu- 
ated in the formation of the Land Beform Asso- 
ciation, whose headquarters were in the city of 
New York, with branches in various portions of 
the country. This society, whose organ was a 
very ably conducted weekly paper, called Young 
America, endeavored to enhghten the pubHc 
mind, and arouse the popular sentiment in rela- 
tion to the curse of land monopoly, and to point 
out an easy and beneficent cure for the great and 
growing evil. The plan recommended was to 
donate the public lands to actual settlers in 
limited quantities, upon condition of real resi- 
dence, improvement, and cultivation. This sys- 
tem, argued its advocates, would promote the 



62 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

growth of a landed democracy, founded npon tlic 
possession and improvement of a homestead, and 
forming the firmest support of a free goA^ernment, 
and the surest base of re^^ubhcan institutions. 

Documents and papers urging this great and 
patriotic poHcy upon pubhc consideration were 
forwarded to all members of the Federal Con- 
gress, but upon no one did it make the impres- 
sion produced upon the clear intellect, far-seeing 
statesmanship, and purely Democratic proclivi- 
ties of Andrew Johnson. He immediately made 
himself its especial champion, and fighting its 
battle with characteristic courage, perseverance, 
and ability, against great and bitter opposition, 
he finally, after a struggle of twelve long years, 
earned it through in triumph, and it is to-day 
diffusing its blessings over the roofs and hearth- 
stones of thousands of contented and happy 
families. 

The speech of President Johnson upon the 
Homestead Bill, delivered in the Senate, May 
20th, 1858, is so full of elevated statesmanship, 
and so clear and powerful an exposition of the 
entire merits of the question, that we give it to 
our readers entire, for no abstract or analysis 
can be made of its arguments and illustrations, 
without faiHng in justice to its compact and 
forcible arrangement. 

"Mr. President — The immediate proposition be- 
fore the Senate is an amendment oifei'cd bj- the hon- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 63 

orable senator from North Carolina,* which provides 
that there shall be a land-warrant issued to each 
head of a family, by the Secretar}^ of the Interior, and 
distributed among those who do not emigrate to the 
public domain, and take possession of and cultivate 
the land for the term of years specified in the bill. I 
have something to say in reference to that amend- 
ment, but I will not say it in this connection. I will 
take it up in its order. I propose, iu the first place, 
to explain briefly the provisions of the bill. 

" The firut section provides for granting one hun- 
dred and sixty acres of land to every head of a family 
who will emigrate to any of the public domain and 
settle npon it, and cultivate it for a term of five years. 
Upon those facts being made known to the register of 
the land-office, the emigrant is to be entitled to obtain 
a patent. The second section provides that he shall 
make an affidavit, and show to the satisfaction of the 
officer that his entry is made in good faith, and that 
his intention is to cultivate the soil and become an 
actual settler. The sixth section of the bill provides 
that any person who is now an inhabitant of the 
United States, but not a citizen, if he makes applica- 
tion, and in the course of five years becomes a citizen 
of the United States, shall be placed on a footing of 
equality with the native-born citizens of the country 
in this respect. The third section provides that those 
entries shall be confined to land that has been in mar- 
ket, and subjected to private entry ; and that the per- 
sons entering the land shall be confined to each alter- 
nate section. 

* Mr. Clingman, 



6-1 A^■DKE^\' JOHNSON. 

" These are substantially the leading provisions of 
this bill. It does not proceed upon the idea, as some 
suppose, of making- a donation ^)r gift of the public 
land to the settler. It proceeds upon the principle of 
consideration ; and I conceive, and I think many 
others do, that the individual who emigrates to the 
West, and reclaims and reduces to cultivation one 
hundred and sixty acres of the public domain, subject- 
ing himself to all the privations and hardships of such 
a life, pays the highest consideration for his land, 

"But, before I say more on this portion of the sub- 
ject, I desire to premise a little by giving the history 
of this homestead proposition. Some persons from 
my own region of the country, or-, in other words, 
from the South, have thrown out the intimation that 
this is a proposition which partakes, to some extent, 
of the nature of the Emigrant Aid Society, and is to 
operate injuriously to the Southei'n States. For the 
purpose of making the startiug-point right, I want to 
go back and show when this proposition was first in- 
troduced into the Congress of the United States. I am 
not sure but that the Presiding Officer* remembers 
well the history of this measure. 

" In 1846, on the 2tth day of March, long before we 
had any emigrant aid societies, long before we liad 
the compromises of 1850 in reference to the slavery 
question, long before we had any agitation on the sub- 
ject of slavery in 1854, long before we had any agita- 
tion upon it in 1858, this proposition made its advent 
into the House of Representatives, It met with con- 
siderable opposition. It scarcely received serious 

*Mr. Foot, of Vermont, in the chair. 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 65 

consideration for a length of time ; but the measure 
was pressed until the public mind took hold of it ; and 
it was still pressed until the 12th day of May, 1852, 
when it passed that body by a two-thirds vote. Thus 
we see that its origin and its consummation, so far as 
the House of Representatives was concerned, had 
nothing to do with North or South, but proceeded 
upon that g-reat principle which interests every man 
in this country, and which, in the end, secures and 
provides for him a home. By putting these dates to- 
gether, it will be perceived that it was just six years, 
five months, and fifteen days from the introduction of 
this bill itatil its passage by the House of Represen- 
tatives. 

" I shall not detain the Senate by any lengthy re- 
marks on tlie general principles of the bill ; for I do 
not intend to be prolix, or to consume much of the 
Senate's time. What is the origin of the great idea 
of a homestead of land ? We find, on turning to the 
first law-writer — and I think one of the best, for we 
are informed that he wrote by inspiration — that he 
advances the first idea on this subject. Moses made 
use of the following language : 

" ' The land shall not be sold forever ; for the land 
is mine — for ye are strangers and sojourners Avith 
me.' — Leviticus, xxv. 23. 

"We begin, then, with Moses. The next writer to 
whom I will call the attention of the Senate is Vattel 
— one of the ablest, if not the ablest writer upon the 
laws of nations. He lays down this great principle :* 

" ' Of all the arts, tillage or agriculture is the most 

* Vattel. Book I. ch. 7, 



C6 ANDRE^y JOHisrsoN. 

useful and necessary. It is the nursing-father of the 
State. The cultivation of the earth causes it to pi*o- 
duce an infinite increase ; it forms the surest resource, 
and the most solid fund of rich commerce for the 
people who enjo}'' a happy climate. 

" ' This afiair, then, deserves the utmost attention 
from Government. The sovereign ought to neglect 
no means of rendering the land under his obedience 
as well cultivated as possible. He ought not to allow 
either communities or private persons to acquire large 
tracts of land to leave uncultivated. These rights of 
common, which deprive the proprietor of the free lib- 
erty of disposing of his lands — that will not allow him 
to farm them, and cause them to be cultivated in the 
most advantageous manner — these rights, I say, are 
contrary to the welfare of the State, and ought to be 
suppressed or reduced to a just bound. The property 
introduced among the citizens does not prevent the 
nation's having a right to take the most effectual 
measures to cause the whole country to produce the 
greatest and most advantageous revenue possible. 

" ' The Government ouglit carefully to avoid every 
thing capable of discouraging husbandmen, or of di- 
verting them from the labors of agriculture. Those 
taxes, those excessive and ill-proportioned impositions, 
the burden of which falls almost entirely upon the 
cultivators, and the vexations they suffer from the 
commissioners who levy them, take from the unhappy 
peasant the means of cultivating the earth, and de- 
populate the country. Spain is the most fertile and 
t!ie winst cultivated country in Europe. The Church 
piis.sesses too much land, and the undertakers of 
ruval magazines, who are authorized to purchase at 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. G7 

low prices all the corn they find in possession of a 
peasant, above what is necessary for the subsistence 
of his wife and family, so g-reatly discourage the hus- 
bandman, that he sows no more corn than is necessary 
for the support of his own household. Whence 
arises the greatest scarcity in a country capable of 
feeding its neighbors. 

" ' Another abuse injurious to agriculture is, the 
contempt cast upon husbandmen. The inhabitants of 
cities, even the most servile artist and tlie most lazy 
citizen, consider him who cultivates the soil with a 
disdainful eye ; they humble and discourage him ; 
they dare to despise a profession that feeds the human 
race — the natural employment of man. A stay-maker 
places far beneath him the beloved employment of 
the first consuls and dictators of Rome. 

" ' China has wisely prevented this abuse. Agricul- 
ture is there held in honor; and to preserve this happy 
manner of thinking, every year, on a solemn day, the 
Emperor himself, followed by the whole court, sets 
his hands to the plough and sows a small piece of land. 
Hence China is the best cultivated country in tlie 
world. It nourishes an innumerable multitude of 
people that at first appears to the traveller too great 
for the space they possess. 

" ' The cultivation of the soil is not only to be recom- 
mended by the Government on account of the extra- 
ordinary advantages that flow from it, but from its 
being an obligation imposed by nature on mankind. 
The whole earth is appointed for the nourishment of 
its inhabitants, but it would be incapable of doing it 
was it uncultivated. Every nation is then obliged by 
a law of nature to cultivate the ground that has fallen 



68 ANDliEW JiHLXSOX. 

to its Siiaro, and it has no right to expect or require 
assistance from others, any further than the land in 
its possession is incapable of furnishing- it with neces- 
saries. Those people, like the ancient Germans and 
modern Tartars, who, having fertile countries, disdain 
to cultivate the earth, and rather choose to live by 
rapine, are wanting to themselves, and deserve to be 
exterminated as savage and rapacious beasts. There 
are others who avoid agriculture, who would only live 
by hunting and flocks. This might doubtless be 
allowed in the first ages of the world, when the earth 
produced more than was suflBcient to feed its few in- 
habitants; but at present, when the human race is so 
greatly multiplied, it would not subsist if all nations 
■ resolved to live in this manner. Those who still retain 
this idle life usurp more extensive territories than 
they would have occasion for were they to use honest 
labor, and have, therefore, no reason to complain if 
other nations, more laborious and too closely confined, 
come to possess a part. Thus, though the conquest 
of the civilized empires of Peru and Mexico was a 
notorious usurpation, the establishment of many 
colonies in North America may, on their confining- 
themselves within just bounds, be extremely lawful. 
The people of those vast countries rather overran than 
inhabited them.' 

" I propose next to cite the authority of General 
Jackson, who was believed to be not only a friend to 
the South but a friend to the Union. He inculcated 
this great doctrine in his message of 1832 : 

" 'It cannot be doubted that the speedy settlement 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 69 

of those lands constitntos the true interest of the 
Republic. The wealth and strength of a country are 
its population, and the best part of J;he population are 
cultivators of the soil. Independent farmers are 
everywhere the basis of society, and the true friends 
of liberty.' 

Jjx j|^ j|C 5|C ?jc 

" ' It seems to me to be our true policy that the 
public lauds shall cease, as soon as practicable, to be 
a source of revenue; and that they be sold to settlers 
in limited parcels, at prices barely sufficient to reim- 
burse the United States the expense of the present 
system, and the cost arising from our Indian con- 
tracts.' 

*^ '1^ *|t ^^ Jjc 

" ' It is desirable, however, that the right of the soil, 
and the future disposition of it, be surrendered to the 
States respectively in which it lies. 

" ' The adventurous and hardy population of the 
West, besides contributing their equal share'of taxa- 
tion under the impost s^'Stem, have, in the progress of 
our Government, for the lands they occupy, paid into 
the treasury a large proportion of forty million dollars, 
and of the revenue received therefrom but a small 
portion has been expended among them. When, to 
the disadvantage of their situation in this respect, we 
add the consideration that it is their labor alone that 
gives real value to the lands, and that the proceeds 
arising from these sales are chiefly distributed among 
States that had not originally any claim to them, and 
which have enjoj^ed the undivided emoluments arising 
from the sales of their own lands, it cannot be ex- 
pected that the new States will remain longer con- 



70 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

tented -unth the present policy, after the payment of 
the public debt. To avert the consequences Avhich 
may be apprehended from this cause, to stop forever 
all partial and interested legislation on this subject, 
and to afford every American citizen of enterprise the 
opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it 
seems to me, therefore, best to abandon the idea of 
raising a future revenue out of the public lands.' 

" Thus we have standing before us, in advocacy of 
this great principle, the first writer of laws, Moses ; 
next we have Vattel ; and in the third place we have 
General Jackson. 

" Now, let us see whether there has been any home- 
stead policy in the United States. By turning to our 
statutes, we find that the first homestead bill ever 
introduced into the Congress of the United States was 
in 1791. I know that it is said bj' some, and it is 
sometimes cantingly and slurringly reiterated in the 
newspapers, that this is a demagogical movement, 
and that some person has introduced and advocates 
this policy purely for the purpose of pleasing the 
people. I want to see who some of these demagogues 
are ; and, before I read the section of this statute, I 
will refer, in connection with Jackson and those other 
distinguished individuals, to the fact that Mr. Jefier- 
son, the philosopher and statesman, recognized and 
appreciated this great doctrine. In 1191, the first 
bill passed by the Congress of the United States re- 
cognizing the homestead principle, is in the following 
words : 

" ' That four hundred acres of land be given' — 
that is the language of the statute. We do not as- 
sume in this bill to give land. We assume that a 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 71 

considei-ation passes ; but here was a law that was 
based on the idea that four hundred acres of land were 
to be given 

— " 'to each of those persons who, in the year 1783, 
were heads of families at Vincennes, or the Illinois 
country, or the Mississippi, and who, since that time, 
have removed from one of the said places to the other; 
but the Governor of the Territory northwest of the 
Ohio is hereby directed to cause the same to be laid 
out for them at their own expense,' etc. 

"Another section of the same act provides — 
" ' That the heads of families at Vincennes, or in the 
Illinois country, in the year 1183, who afterwards 
removed without the limits of said territory, are 
nevertheless entitled to the donation of four hundred 
acres of land made by the resolve of Congress,' etc. 

" That act recognized the principle embraced in the 
homestead bill. If this is the idea of a demagogue, 
if it is the idea of one catering or pandering to the 
public sentiment to catch votes, it was introduced 
into Congress in 1791, and received the approval of 
Washington, the father of his country. I presume 
that if he lived at this day, and were to approve the 
measure, as he did in 1791, he would be branded, and 
put in the category of those persons who are denomi- 
nated demagogues. Under his administration there 
was another bill passed of a similar import, recogniz- 
ing and carrying out the great homestead principle. 
Thus we find that this policy, so far as legislation is 
concerned, commenced with Washington, and received 
his approval as early as 1791. From General Wash- 
ington's administration there are forty-four precedents, 
running through every administration of this Govern- 



72 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

meat down to the present time, in which this principle 
has been recognized and indorsed. 

" We discover from this liistorical review that this 
is no new idea, that it is no recent invention, that it 
is no new movement for the pui'pose of making votes ; 
but it is a principle well-nigh as old as the Govern- 
ment itself, which was indorsed and approved by 
Washington himself. 

" This would seem, Mr. President, to settle the 
question of power. I knoAV it has been argued by 
some that Congress had not the power to make dona- 
tions of land ; but even the statute to which I have 
referred makes use of the word ' give/ without con- 
sideration. It was considered constitutional by the 
early fathers to give away land. We proceed in this 
bill upon the principle that there is a consideration. 
If I were disposed to look for precedents, even for 
the donations of the public lands, I could instance the 
bounty-land act, I could take you through other acts 
donating land, showing that the principle has been 
recognized again and again, and that there is not 
now a question as to its constitutionality. 

" I believe there is a clear difference in the power 
of the Federal Government in reference to its appro- 
priations of money and its appropriations of the public 
land. The Congress of the United States has power 
to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, 
. to pay the debts and provide for the common defence 
and general welfare. I believe it has the power to 
lay and collect duties for these legitimate purposes ; 
but wdien taxes have been laid, collected, and paid 
into the treasury, I do not think it has that general 
scope or that latitude in the appropriation of money 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 73 

that it has over the public lands. Once converted 
into revenue, Congress can only appropriate the 
revenue to the specific objects of the Constitution. 
It may derive revenue from the public lands, and 
being- revenue, it can only be appropriated to the 
purposes for which revenue is raised under the Con- 
stitution. 

" But when we turn to another provision of the Con- 
stitution, we find that Congress has power ' to dis- 
pose of and make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territory or other property belonging 
to the United States.' Congress has, in the organiza- 
tion of all the Territories and in the admission of new 
States, recognized most clearly the principle of appro- 
priating the public lands for the benefit of schools, 
colleges, and academies. It has granted the sixteenth 
and thirty-sixth sections of every township for school 
purposes ; it has granted lands for public buildings 
and various other improvements. I am very clear on 
this point, that in the disposition of the public lands 
they should be applied to national purposes. If wo 
grant the public lands to actual settlers, so as to in- 
duce them to settle upon and cultivate them, can there 
be any thing more national in its character ? What 
is the great object of acquiring territory ? Is it not 
for settlement and cultivation? We may acquire 
territory by the exercise of the treaty-making power. 
We may be engaged in a war, and as terras or con- 
ditions of peace we may make large acquisitions of 
territory to the United States. But what is the great 
idea and principle on which you acquire territory ? 
Is it not to settle and cultivate it ? 

" I ajjM aware that the argument is used, if you can 

4 



74 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

dispose of the public lands for this purpose or that 
purpose, cannot you sell the public lands and apply 
the proceeds to the same purpose ? I think there is 
a clear distinction between the two cases. It is 
equally clear to me that, if the Federal Government 
can set apart the public lands for school purposes in 
the new States, it can appropriate lands to enable the 
parent to sustain the child whilst enjoying- the bene- 
fits conferred upon him by the Government in the 
shape of education. The argument is as sound in 
the one case as it is in the othei'. If we can grant 
lands in the one case, we can in the other. If, with- 
out making a contract in advance, you can grant 
your public lands as gratuities, as donations to men 
who go out and light the battles of their country, 
after the sei'vices have been rendered, is it not strange, 
passing strange, that you cannot grant land to those 
who till the soil and make provision to sustain your 
army while it is fighting the battles of the country ? 
It seems to me that the argument is clear. I do not 
intend to argue the constitutional question, for I think 
there can be really no doubt on that point. I do not 
believe any one at this day will seriously make any 
point on that ground against this bill. Is its purpose 
a national one ? The great object is to induce persons 
to cultivate the land, and thereby make the soil pro- 
ductive. By doing this, you induce hundreds of per- 
sons throughout the United States, who are wow pro- 
ducing but little, to come in contact with the soil and 
add to the productive -capacity of the country, and 
thereby promote the national weal. 

" I come now to the amendment offered by the sena- 
tor from North Carolina, I have not looked over the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES, 75 

Globe this morning to read his remarks of yesterday; 
but if I understood him correctly, he advocated the 
proposition of issuing a warrant for a hundred and 
sixty acres of land to each head of a family in the 
United States. I am inclined to think the senator is 
not serious in this proposition. It has been offered 
on some occasions heretofore, and rejected by very 
decided votes. Let us compare it with the proposi- 
tion of the bill. The idea of the honorable senator 
seems to be that this bill was designed to force or 
compel, to some extent, the citizens of other States to 
go to the new States. Why, sir, there is no com- 
pulsory process in the bill. It leaves each man at his 
own discretion, at his own free will, either to go or to 
stay, just as it suits his inclinations. 

" The senator seems to think too — and the same 
idea was advanced by his predecessor — that at this 
time such a measure would have a tendency to di- 
minish the revenue. He intimates that the nation is 
now bankrupt, that we are borrowing money, that the 
receipts from customs have been greatly diminished, 
and that therefore it would be dangerous to pass this 
bill, because it would have a tendency to diminish the 
revenue. Let us compare the senator's proposition 
and that of the bill, in this respect. His amendment 
is to issue warrants to each head of a family. The 
population of the United States is now estimated at 
about twenty-eight millions. Let us assume, for the 
sake of illustration, that there are three million heads 
of families in the United States. His proposition, 
then, is to issue and throw upon the market three 
millions of warrants, each warrant entitling the holder 
to one hundred and sixty acres of land. If that were 



76 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

done, and those Avarrants were thrown upon the mar- 
ket, what would they sell for ? Little or nothing. If 
such land-warrants were thrown broadcast over the 
countrj^, who would enter another acre of land at 
$1.25 ? Would not the warrants pass into the hands 
of land-speculators and monopolists at a merely nom- 
inal price ? Would they bring more than a quarter 
of a dollar an acre ? If you were to throw three mil- 
lions of land-M'arrauts into the market at one time, 
would they bring any thing ? Then the effect of that 
proposition would be to do but little good to those to 
whom the warrants were issued ; and by throwing 
them into the market, it would cut off the revenue 
from public lands entirely, for no one would enter 
land for cash as long as warrants could be bought. 
That proposition, then, is to aid and feed speculation. 
I do not say that is the motive or intention, but it is 
the tendency and eifect of the senator's proposition 
to throw a large portion of the public lands into the 
hands of speculators, and to cut them off from the 
treasury as a source of revenue. 

" But what does this bill propose? Will it dimin- 
ish the receipts into the treasury from the public 
lands ? The bill provides that the entries under it 
shall be confined to the alternate sections, and that 
the person who obtains the benefit of the bill must be 
an actual settler and cultivator. In proportion as you 
settle and cultivate any portion of the public lands, 
do you not enhance the value of the remaining sec- 
tions, and bring them into the market much sooner, 
and obtain a better price for them than you would 
without this bijl ? What is the principle upon which 
you have proceeded in all the railroad grants you 



SERVICES AIhD SrEECllES. 77 

have made? They have been defended upon the 
ground that by granting- alternate sections for rail- 
roads, you thereby brought the remaining lands into 
the market, and enabled the Government to realize its 
means at a much earlier period, making the remainder 
of the public lands more valuable than they were be- 
fore. This bill proceeds upon the same idea. You 
have granted an immense amount of lands to railroads 
on this principle, and now why not do something for 
the people ? 

" I say, that instead of wasting the public lands, 
instead of reducing the receipts into the treasury, this 
bill would increase them. In the first place, it will 
enhance the value of the reserved quarter-sections. 
This may be illustrated by an example. In 1848 we 
had nine million quarter-sections ; in 1858 we have 
about seven millions. Let us suppose that our popu- 
lation is twenty-eight millions, and that under the 
operation of this bill one million heads of families who 
are now producing but very little, and who have no 
land to cultivate, and very scanty means of subsist 
ence, shall each have a quarter-section of land, what 
will the effect be ? At present these persons pay 
little or nothing for the support of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, under the operation of our tariff system, for 
the reason that they have not got much to buy with. 
How much does the land jaeld to the Government 
while it is lying in a state of nature, uncultivated? 
Nothing at all. At the rate we have been selling the 
public lands, about three million dollars' worth a year, 
estimating them at $1.25 an acre, it Avill take a frac- 
tion less than seven hundred years to dispose of the 
public domain. 



78 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

" I will take a case that will demonstrate as clearly 
as the simplest suui in arithmetic that this is a reve- 
nue measure. Let us take a million families who can 
now hardly procure the necessaries of life, and place 
them each on a quarter-section of land, — how long' 
will it be before their condition will be improved so 
as to make them able to contribute something t(t the 
support of the Government ? Now, here is soil pro- 
ducing nothing, here are hands producing but little. 
Transfer the man from the point where he is produ- 
cing nothing, bring him in contact with a hundred and 
sixty acres of productive soil, and how long will it be 
before that man changes his condition ? As soon as 
he gets upon the land he begins to make his impi'ove- 
ments, he clears out his field, and the work of produc- 
tion is conmieuced. In a short time he has a crop, he 
has stock and other things that result from bringing 
his physical labor in contact with the soil. He has 
the products of his labor and his land, and he is en- 
abled to exchange them for articles of consumption. 
He is enabled to buy more than he did before, and thus 
he contributes more to the support of his Government, 
while, at the same time, he becomes a better man, a more - 
reliable man for all governmental purposes, because 
he is interested in the country in which he lives. 

"To illustrate the matter further, let us take a 
family of seven persons in number who now have no 
home, no abiding-place that they can call their own, 
and transfer them to a tract of one hundred and sixty 
acres of land which they are to possess and cultivate. 
Is there a senator here who does not believe, that, by 
changing their position from one place to the other, 
they would produce at least a dollar more than they 



SERVICES AND SPEECnES. 79 

did before ? I will begin at a point scarcely visible, 
— a single dollar. Is there a man here or anywhere 
else who does not know the fact to be, that you in- 
crease a man's ability to buy when he produces more 
by bringing his labor in contact with the soil. The 
result of that contact is production ; he produces 
something that he can convert and exchange for the 
necessities of his family. Suppose the increase was 
only a dollar a head for a million of families, each 
family consisting of seven persons. By transferring 
a million of families from their present dependent 
condition to the enjoyment and cultivation of the pub- 
lic domain, supposing it would only increase their 
ability to buy foreign imports to the extent of a dollar 
each, you would create a demand for seven millions' 
worth of imports. Our rates of duties, under the tar- 
ifi" act of 1846, are about thirty per cent., and thus, 
at the almost invisible beginning of a single dollar a 
head, you, in this way, increase the pecuniary and 
financial means of the Government to the extent of 
$2,100,000. 

" This would be the result, supposing that there 
would only be an addition of one dollar per head to 
the ability of each family, by being taken from a con- 
dition of poverty and placed upon one hundred and 
sixty acres of land. This is the result, supposing 
them to have seven dollars more, with which to buy 
articles of consumption, than they bad wlusn they had 
no home, no soil to cultivate, no stimulant, no induce- 
ment to labor. If you suppose the effect would be to 
increase their ability two dollars per head, you 
would increase their consumption to the amount of 
$14,000,000, which, at thirty per cent, duty, would 



80 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

yield $4,200,000. If 3'ou supposed it increased the 
ability of a family four dollars per head, the total 
amount would be $28,000,000, which would yield a 
revenue of $8,400,000. I think that this would be far 
below the truth, and if you give a family one hundred 
and sixty acres of land to cultivate, the effect would 
be to increase the ability of that family so as to buy 
fifty-six dollars' worth more than they bought before — 
eight dollars a head. That would be a small increase 
to a family who had a home, compared with the con- 
dition of that family when it Lad none. The effect of 
that would be to run up the amount they buy to 
$56,000,000, which, at a duty of thirty per cent., 
would yield the sum of $16,800,000. 

" I show you, then, that, by taking one million 
families, consisting of seven persons each, and putting 
them each upon a quarter-section of land, making the 
soil productive, if you thereby only add to their 
capacity to buy goods to the amount of fifty-six 
dollars per family, you would derive a revenue of 
nearly seventeen million dollars. When you have done 
this, how much of the public lands would you have 
disposed of? One million quarter-sections, and you 
would have nearly six million quarter-sections left. 
By disposing of one-sixth of your public domain in 
this way, upon this little miniature estimate, you 
bring into the cofiers of the Federal Government by 
this bill $16,800,000 annually. 

" Does this look like diminishing the revenue ? Does 
it not rather show that this bill is a revenue measure ? 
I think it is most clearly a revenue measure. Not 
only is this the case in a money point of view, so far 
as the imports are concerned, but; by settling the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 81 

alternate sections Avith actual cultivators, you make 
the remaining sections more valuable to the Govern- 
ment, and you bring- them sooner into market. In 
continuation of this idea, I will read a portion of the 
argument which I made upon this subject when I first 
introduced the bill into the other House. I read from 
the report of my speech on that occasion : 

" ' Mr. J. said, it will be remembered by the House 
that he had already shown, that by giving an indivi- 
dual a quarter-section of the land, the Government 
would receive back, in the shape of a revenue, in 
every seven years, more than the Government price 
of the land ; and, upon this principle, the Govern- 
ment would, in fact, be realizing two hundred and 
ten dollars every subsequent term of seven years. The 
whole number of acres of public land belonging to 
the United States at this time, or up to the 30 th of 
Septembei', 1848, is one billion four hundred and forty- 
two millions two hundred and sixteen thousand one 
hundred and sixty-eiglit acres. This amount, esti- 
mated at $1.25 per acre, will make $1,802,170,000. 
To dispose of $3,000,000 worth per annum, which is 
more than an average sum, would require seven 
hundred years, or a fraction less, to dispose of the 
entire domain. It will now be perceived at once 
that the Government would derive an immense ad- 
vantage by giving the land to the cultivator, instead 
of keeping it on hand this length of time. We find 
by this process the Government w'ould derive from 
each quarter-section in six hundred years (throwing 
off the large excess of nearly one hundred years), 
$1*1,000 — seven going into six hundred eighty-five 
times. This, then, shows on , the one hand what 

4* 



82 ANDREW JOHXso^^ 

the Government would gain by giving the land 
away. 

" ' He said that this expose ought to satisfy every 
one, that instead of violating the plighted faith of the 
Government, it was enlarging and making more valu- 
able, and enabling the Government to derive a much 
larger amount of revenue to meet all its liabilities, 
and thereby preserving its faith inviolate.' 

" I do not think there can be any question as to the 
revenue part of this proposition. We show that by 
granting a million quarter-sections you derive more 
revenue upon the public lands than you do by your 
entire land-system, as it now stands. In 1850, it 
was estimated that each head of a family consumed 
$100 worth of home manufactures. If we increase 
the ability of the cultivator and occupier of the soil 
fifty-six dollars in the family, of course it is reasonable 
to presume that he would consume a correspondingly 
increased proportion of home manufactures. Can that 
proposition be controverted ? I think not. Then we 
see on the one hand, that we should derive more rev- 
enue from granting the land, on the principle laid 
down in the bill, and also that we should open a 
market for articles manufactured in our own country. 
Then, taking both views of the subject, we see that it 
is an advantage to the manuiacturing interest, and 
that it is also an advantage to the Government, so 
far as imports are concerned. I should like to know, 
then, where can the objection be, upon the score of 
revenue. 

" But, Mr. President, the question of dollars and cents 
is of no consideration to me. The money view of this 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 83 

subject does not influence my mind by the weight of 
a featlicr. I think it is clear, thougli ; and this view- 
has been presented to prove to senators that this bill 
wilJ not diminish, but, on the contrary, will increase 
the revenue. 

" But this is not the most important view of the sx:b- 
ject. When you look at our country as it is, you see 
that it is very desirable that the great mass of the 
people shonld be interested in the country. By this 
bill you provide a man with a home, you increase the 
revenue, you increase the consumption of home man- 
ufactures, and you make him a better man, and you 
give him an interest in the country. His condition is 
better. There is no man so reliable as he who is 
interested in the welfare of his country ; and who are 
more interested in the welfare of their country than 
those who have homes ? When a man has a home, 
he has a deeper, a more abiding interest in the 
country, and he is more reliable in all things that 
pertain to the Government. He is more reliable when 
he goes to the ballot-box ; he is more reliable in sus- 
taining in every way the stability of our free institu- 
tions. 

" It seems to me that this, without the other consider- 
ation, would be a sufficient inducement. When we 
see the population that is accumulating about some 
of our cities, I think it behooves every man who is a 
statesman, a patriot, and a philanthropist, to turn his 
attention to this subject. I have lately seen some 
statistics with reference to the city of New York, in 
which it is assumed that one-sixth of the population 
are paupers; that two-sixths of the population are 
barely able to sustain themselves; leaving one pauper 



84 A-VDKEVV JUHXb'OX. 

to be sustained by three pereons in every six in the 
city of New York. Does not that present a frightful 
state of thing's ? Suppose the populatioi^i of that city 
to be one million : you would have in the single city 
of New York one hundred and sixty-six thousand 
paupers. 

"I do not look upon the growth of cities and the ac- 
cumulation of population about cities as being the 
most desirable objects in this country. I do not be- 
lieve that a large portion of this population, even if 
3'ou were to offer them homesteads, would ever go to 
them. I have no idea that they would ; for a man who 
has spent most of his life about a city, and has sunk 
into a pauperi2ied condition, is not the man to go 
"West, reclaim one hundred and sixty acres of land, 
and reduce it to cultivation. He will not go there on 
that condition. Though we are satisfied of this, may 
not our policy be such as to prevent, as far as practica- 
ble, the further accumulation of such an unproductive 
population about our cities? Let us try to prevent 
their future accumulation ; let these live, have their 
day, and pass away — they will ultimately pass away — 
but let our policy be such as to induce men to become 
mechanics and agriculturists. Interest them in the 
country^ pin them to the soil, and they become more 
reliable and sustain themselves, and you do away 
vj-ith much of the pauperism in the country. The 
population of the United States being twenty-eight 
millions, if the same pi'oportion of paupers as in the 
city of New York existed throughout the country^ 
you would have four million six hundred and sixty- 
six thousand paupei's in the United States. Do we 
■WM\t all our population to become of that character ? 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 85 

Do we want cities to take control of this Government ? 
Unless the proper steps be taken, unless the proper 
direction be given to the future affairs of this Govern- 
ment, the cities are to take charge of it and control 
it. The rural population, the mechanical and agricul- 
tural portions of this community, are the very salt of 
it. They constitute the "mud-sills," to use a terra 
recently introduced here. They constitute the founda- 
tion upon which the Government rests; and hence we 
see the state of things before us. Should we not 
give the settlement of our public lands and the popu- 
lation of our country that direction which will beget 
and create the best portion of the population ? Is it 
not fearful to think of four million six hundred and 
sixty-six thousand paupei's in the United States, at 
the rate they have them in New York ? Mr. Jeffer- 
son never said a truer thing than when he declared 
that large cities wei-e eye-sores in the body politic : 
in democracies they are consuming cancers. 

" I know the idea of some is to build up great popu- 
lous cities, and that thereby the interests of the 
country are to be promoted. Sir, a city not only 
sinks into pauperism, but into vice and immorality of 
every description that can be enumerated ; and I 
would not vote for any policy that I believed would 
build up cities upon this pi'inciple. Build up your 
villages, build up your rural disti-icts, and you will 
have men who rely upon their own industry, who 
rely upon their own efforts, who rely upon their own 
ingenuity, who rely upon their own economy and 
application to business for a support ; and these are 
the people whom you have to depend upon. Why, Mr. 
President, how was it in ancient Rome ? I know 



86 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

there has been a great deal said in denunciation of 
agrarianisni and the Gracchi. It has been said that 
a doctrine something like this led to the decline of 
the Roman empire ; but the Gracchi never had their 
day until a cancerous influence had destro3'ed the 
very vitals of Rome ; and it was the destruction of 
Rome that brought forth Tiberius Gracchus. It was 
to prevent land monopoly, not agrarianism, in the 
common acceptation of the term — which is dividing 
out lands that had been acquired by individuals. 
They sought to take back and put in the possession 
of the great mass of the people that portion of the 
public domain which had been assumed by the capital- 
ists, who had no title to it in fact. The Gracchi tried 
to carry out this policy — to restore that which had 
been taken from the people. The population had sunk 
into the condition of large proprietors on the one hand, 
and dependents on the other ; and when this depend- 
ent condition was brought about, as we find from 
Niebuhr's History, the middle class of the community 
was all gone ; it had left the country ; there was 
nothing but an aristocracy on the one hand, and de- 
pendents upon that aristocracy on the other ; and 
when this got to be the case, the Roman empire went 
down. 

" Having, this illustrious example before us, we 
should be warned by it. Our true policy is to build 
up the middle class, to sustain the villages, to popu- 
late the rural districts, and let the power of this Gov- 
ernment remain with the middle class. I want no 
miserable city rabble on the one hand ; I want no pam- 
pered, bloated, corrupted aristocracy on the other. I 
want the middle portion of society to be built up and 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 87 

Bustained, and to let them have the control of the 
G(jvernment. I am as much opposed to agrarianism 
as any senator on this floor, or any individual in the 
United States. And this bill does not partake in the 
slightest degree of agrarianism ; hut, on the contrary'', 
it commences with men at the precise point where 
agrarianism ends, and it carries them up in an ascend- 
ing line, while that carries them down. It gives them 
an interest in their country, an interest in public af- 
fairs ; and when you are involved in war, in insurrec- 
tion, or rebellion, or danger of any kind, they are the 
men who are to sustain you. If you should have oc- 
casion to call volunteers into the service of the coun- 
try,- you will have a population of men having homes, 
having wives and children to care for, who will 
defend their hearthstones when invaded. What a 
sacred thing it is to a man to feel that he has a hearth- 
stone to defend, a home, and a wife and children to 
care for, and to rest satisfied that they have an abid- 
ing-place 1 Such a man is interested individually in 
repelling invasion ; he is iutex'ested individually in 
having good government. 

" I know there are many, and even some in the 
Democratic ranks, whose nerves are a little timid in 
regard to trusting the people with too much power. 
Sir, the people are the safest, the best, and the most 
reliable lodgment of power, if you have a population 
of this kind. Keep up the middle class ; lop oflF an 
aristocracy on the one hand, and a rabble on the other ; 
let the middle class maintain the ascendency, let 
them have the power, and your Government is always 
secure. Then you need not fear the people, I know, 
as I have just remarked, that some are timid in regard 



88 ANDREW JOHXSOX. 

to trusting the people ; but there can be no danger 
from a people who are interested in their Government, 
who have homes to defend, and wives and children to 
care for. Even if we test this proposition by that 
idea of self-interest which is said to govern and con- 
trol man, I ask you if a man who has an interest in 
his country is not more reliable tliau one who has 
none? Is not a 'man who is adding to the wealth of 
his country more reliable than one who is simply a 
consumer and has no interest in it ? If we suppose a 
man to be governed only by the principle of self-inter- 
est, is he not more reliable when he has a stake in 
the country, and is it not his interest to promote and ad- 
vance his own condition ? Is it not the interest of the 
great mass to have every thing done rightly in reference 
to Government ? The great mass of the people hold 
no office ; they expect nothing from the Government. 
The only way they feel, and know, and understand 
the operations of the Government is in the exactions 
it makes from them. When thej'^ are receiving from 
the Government protection in common, it is their in- 
terest to do right in all governmental affairs ; and 
that being their interest, they are to be relied upon, 
even if you suppose men to be actuated altogether by 
the principle of self-interest. It is the interest of the 
middle class to do right in all governmental affairs ; 
and hence they are to be relied upon. Instead of re- 
quiring you to keep up your armies, your mounted 
men, and your footmen on the frontier, if you will let 
the people go and possess this public land on the con- 
ditions proposed in this bill, you will have an army 
on the frontier composed of men who will defend their 
own firesides, who will take care of their own homes, 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 89 

and will defend the othei" portions of the country, if 
need be, in time of war. . 

" I would remark in this connection, that the public 
lands have paid for themselves. According- to the re- 
port of Mr. Stuart of Virginia, the Secretary of the In- 
terior in 1850, it was shown that then the public lands 
had paid for themselves, and sixty millions over. We 
have received into the treasury since that time about 
thirty-two million dollai's from the public lands. They 
have, therefore, already paid the Government more 
than they cost, and there can be no objection to this 
bill on the ground that the public lands have been, 
bought with the common treasure of the whole coun- 
tr^^ Besides, this bill provides that each individual 
making an entry shall pay all the expenses attend- 
ing it. 

" We see, then, Mr. President, the effect this policy 
is to have on population. Let me ask here — looking 
to our popular elections, looking to the proper lodg- 
ment of power — is it not time that we had adopted a 
policy which would give us men interested in the 
affairs of the country, to control and sway our elec- 
tions ? It seems to me that this cannot long be de- 
bated ; the point is too clear. The agricultural and 
mechanical portion of the community are to be relied 
upon for the preservation and continuance of this 
Government. The great mass of the people, the great 
middle class, are honest. They toil for their support, 
accepting- no favor from Government. They live by 
labor. They do not live by consumption, but by pro- 
duction ; and we should consume as small a porfion 
of their production as it is possible for us to consume, 
leaving the producer to appropriate to his own use 



90 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

and benefit as much of the product of his own labor 
as it is possible in the nature of things to do. The 
great mass of the people need advocates — men who 
are honest and capable, who are willing to defend 
them. How much legislation is done for classes, and 
how little care seems to be exercised for the great 
mass of the people! When we are among our constit- 
uents, it is very easy to make appeals to the people 
and professions of patriotism ; and then — I do not mean 
to be personal or invidious — it is very easy, when we 
are removed from them a short distance, to forget the 
people and legislate for classes, neglecting the inter- 
est of the great mass. The mechanics and agricultur- 
ists are honest, industrious, and economical. Let it 
not be supposed that I am against learning or educa- 
tion, but I might speak of the man in the rural dis- 
tricts in the language of Pope — 

' Unlearned, lie knew no sclioolman's subtle art, 
No language, but the language of the heart ; 
By nature honest, by experience wise ; 
Healthy by temperance and exercise.' 

" This is the kind of men whom we must rely upon. 
Let your public lands be settled ; let them be filled up ; 
kt honest men become cultivators and tillers of the 
soil. I do not claim to be prophetic, but I have some- 
times thought that if we would properly direct our 
legislation in reference to our public policy, the time 
would come when this would be the greatest govern- 
ment on the face of the earth. Go to the great valley 
of the ilississippi ; take the western slope of the 
iiuiuiitaius to the Pacific Ocean ; take the whole area 
of this foujitry, and wo find that we have over three 



SERTICES AND SPEECHES. 91 

million square miles. Throw off one-fourth as unfit 
for cultivation, reducing the area of the United States 
to fifteen hundred million acres, and by appropriating 
three acres to a person, it will sustain a population of 
over five hundred million people ; and I have no doubt, 
if this continent was strained to its utmost capacity, 
it could sustain the entire population of the world. 
Let us go on and carry out our destiny ; interest men 
in the soil ; let your vacant land be divided equally, 
so that men can have homes ; let them live by their 
own industry ; and the time will come when this will 
be the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Let 
agriculture and the mechanic arts maintain the 
ascendency, and other professions and pursuits be 
subordinate to them, for on these two all others 
rest. 

" Since the crucifixion of our Saviour, emigration 
has been westward ; and the poetic idea might have 
started long before it did — 

' Westward the star of empire takes its way.' 

It has been taking its way westward. The United 
States are filling up. We ai-e going on to the Pacific 
coast. Let me raise the inquiry here, when, in the 
history of mankind, in the progress of nations, was 
there any nation that ever reached the point we now 
occupy ? When was there a nation, in its progress, 
in its settlement, in its advance in all that constitutes 
and makes a nation great, that occupied the position 
we now occupy ? When was there any nation that 
could look to the East and behold the tide of emigra- 
tion coming, and, at the same time, turn around and 



92 ANDREW JOHNSOjST. 

look to the mighty West, and behold the tide of emi- 
gration approaching from that direction. The waves 
of emigration have usually been running in one direc- 
tion, but we find the tide of emigration now changed, 
and we are occupying a central position on the globe. 
Emigration is coming to us from the East and from 
the West ; and when our vacant teiTitory shall be 
filled up, when it shall reach a population of one hun- 
dred and fifty or five hundred millions, who can say 
what will be our destiny ? 

" When our railroad system shall progress on pro- 
per principles, extending from one extreme of the 
country to the other, like so maivy arteries ; when our 
telegraphic wires shall be stretched along them as 
the nerves in the human frame, and they shall run in 
parallel lines, and be crossed at right angles, until the 
whole globe, as it were, and especially this great 
centre, shall be covered like a network with these ar- 
teries and nerves ; when the face of the globe shall 
flash with intelligence like the face of man ; we, oc- 
cupying this important point, may find our institutions 
so perfected, science so advanced, that instead of re- 
ceiving nations from abroad, this will be the great 
sensorium from which our notions of religion, our no- 
tions of government, our improvements in works of 
every description shall radiate as from a common 
centre, and revolutionize the world. 

" Who dares say that this is not our destiny, if wo 
will only permit it to be fulfilled ? Then let us go on 
with this great work of interesting men in becoming 
connected with the soil ; interesting them in remain- 
ing in your mechanic shops ; prevent their accumula- 
tion in the streets of your cities ; and in doing this you 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 93 

will dispense with the necessity fur all j'-our pauper 
system. By doing- this, you enable each community 
to take care of its own poor. By doing this, you de- 
stroy and break down the great propensity that exists 
with men to hang, and loiter, and perish about the 
cities of the Union, as is done now in the older coun- 
tries. 

" It is well enough, Mr. President, to see where our 
public lands have been going. There seems to be a 
great scruple now in reference to the appropriation of 
lands for the benefit of the people ; but the Federal 
Government has been very liberal heretofore in grant- 
ing lands to the States for railroad purposes. We can 
pass law after law, making grant after grant of the 
public lands to corporations, without alarming any 
one here. We have already granted to railroad mo- 
nopolies, to corporations, twenty-four million two hun- 
dred and forty-seven thousand acres. Those grants 
hardly meet with opposition in Congress ; but it seems 
to be very wrong, in the estimation of some, to grant 
lands to the people on the conditions proposed in the 
bill before us. We find, furthermore, that thei-e have 
been granted to the States, as swamp-lands — and 
some of these lands will turn out to be the most pro- 
ductive on the globe — forty million one hundred and 
thirty-three thousand five hundred and sixty-five 
acres. 

" In relation to the public lands, and the grants 
which have been made by the Government, I have 
obtained from the Commissioner of the General Land- 
Oflfice several tables, which I now submit. 



94 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



Estimate of the Quantities of Land which will inure to tJie 
States under Orantsfor Railroads, up to June 30, 1857 

States. Acres. Date of Law. 

Illinois 2,595,053 September 20, 185&. 

Missouri 1,815,435 June 10, 1853 ; Feb. 9, 1853. 

Arkansas 1,465,297: February 9, 1853. 

Michigan 3,090,000 June 3, 1856. 

Wisconsin 1,622,800 June 3, 1850. 

Iowa 3,450,000 May 15, 1856. 

Louisiana 1,102,560 June 3 and Aug. 11, 1858. 

Mississippi 950,400 August 11, 1856. 

Alabama 1,913,390 \ f^\^J' "^T ^ ^f t^3; 

111, 1850; March 3, 1857. 

Florida 1,814,400 May 17, 1850. 

Minnesota 4,410,000 March 3, 1857. 



Total 24,247,335 



Statement showing the Quantity of Swamp-land approved to the 
several States, up to 30th June, 1857. 

States. Acres. 

Ohio 25,650.71 

Indiana 1,250,937.51 

Illinois 1,309,140.73 

Missouri 3,615,966.57 

Alabama 2,595.51 

Mississippi 2,834,790.11 

Louisiana 7,001,535.46 

Michigan 5,465,232.41 

Arkansas 5,920.024.94 

Florida 10,396,982.47 

Wisconsin 1,650,712.10 

Total 40,133,564.51 



SERVICES AND SPEECHi^S. 95 



Estimate of unsold and unappropriated Lands in each of the 
States and Territories, including surveyed and unsuruyed, 
offered and unoffered Lands, on the 30<A June, 1856. 

Number of 
States and Territories. Acres. Quarter-sections. 

Ohio 43,553.34 273 

Indiana 36,307.41 227. 

niinois 511,662.85 3,198 

Missouri 13,365,319.81 83,533 

Alabama 9,459,367.74 59,121 

Mississippi 5,519,390.69 34,496 

Louisiana 5,933,373.83 37,083 

Michigan 10,056,298.-06 62,853 

Arkansas 15,609,543.84 97,560 

Florida 18,067,072.75 112,919 

Iowa 6,237.66103 38,985 

Wisconsin 15,222,549.50 95,141 

California 113,682,436.00 710,515 

Minnesota Territory 83,502,608.33 515,041 

Oregon " 118,913,241.31 743,308 

Washington " 76,444,055.35 477,775 

New Mexico " 155,210.804.00 970,067 

Utah " 134,243,733.00 839,023 

Nebraska " 206,984,747.00 1,393,655 

Kansas " 76,361,058.00 477,256 

Indian " 42,892,800.00 268,080 

Total 1,107,297,572.74 6,930,007 

" The table giving the estimated quantity of all our 
public lands, shows the feasibility of the plan in favor 
of which I have been speaking. I know that some 
gentlemen from the Southern States object to this bill 
because they fear that it will carry emigrants from 
the free States into those States. Well, sir, on this 
point I have drawn some conclusions from figures, 



9G AXDKEW JOHNSON. 

which I will present to the Senate. In the State of 
Alabama there arc now undisposed of fifty-nine thou- 
sand one hundred and twent^^-one quarter-sections of 
land. I ask my Southern friends, would it not be 
better if a man in the State of Alabama should select 
a quarter-section there, and take the two hundred dol- 
lars it would have cost him, and e-xpend it there, even 
though it might be inferior land, than to compel him 
to pay $1.25 an acre, and emigrate from the State of 
Alabama to a place where he could get better land ? 
If you compel him to pay the higher price, it becomes 
his interest to leave his native State ; but by permit- 
ting him to take the land and expend on its improve- 
ment what he would otherwise have to pay, and what 
it would cost him to move, the chances are that he 
will remain where he is. In the State of Mississippi 
there are thirty-four thousand four hundred and nine- 
tj^-six quarter-sections ; in Louisiana, thirty-seven 
thousand ; in Arkansas, ninety-seven thousand ; in 
Florida, one hundred and twelve thousand. Alto- 
gether, the quarter-sections of public lands belong- 
ing to the Government amount to six million nine 
hundred and twenty thousand. How feasible the plan 
is ! I have shown, too, that it would take over six 
hundred years to dispose of the public lands at the 
rate we have been disposing of them, and that if you 
take one million quarter-sections and have them 
settled and cultivated, you will obtain more revenue, 
and you will enhance the remaining public lands 
more than the value of those the Government gives. 

" I live in a Southern State ; and, if I know myself, 
I am as good a Southern man as any one who lives 
within the borders of the South It seems to b© 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 97 

feared that by this bill we compel rneu to go on the 
lands. I want to compel no man to go. I want to 
leave each and every man to be controlled by his own 
inclination, by his own interest, and not to force him ; 
but is it statesmanlike, is it philanthropic, is it Chris- 
tian, to keep a man in a State, and refuse to let him 
go, because, if he does go, he will help to populate 
some other portion of the country ? If a man lives 
in the county in which I live, and he can, by cross- 
ing the line into another county, better his condition, 
I say let him go. If, by crossing the boundary of my 
State and going into another, he can better his condi- 
tion, I say let him go. If a man can go from Tennes- 
see into Illinois, or Louisiana, or Mississippi, or Ar- 
kansas, or any other State, and better his condition, 
let him go. I care not where he goes, so that he lo- 
cates himself in this great area of freedom, becomes 
attached to our institutions, and interested in the 
prosperity and welfare of the country. I care not 
where he goes, so that he is under the protection of 
our Stars and Stripes. I say, let him go where he 
can better the condition of himself, his wife, and chil- 
dren ; let him go where he can receive the greatest 
remuneration for his toil and for his labor. What 
kind of a policy is it to say that a man shall be locked 
up where he was born, and shall be confined to the 
place of his birth ? 

" Take the State of North Carolina, represented by 

the honorable senator before me* — and I have no 

doubt it is his intention to represent that people to 

their satisfaction — would it have been proper to re- 

. quire the people of North Carolina, from her early 

* Mr. Clingman. 
5 



98 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

settlement to tlie present time, to be confined within 
her boundaries ? Would tliey not have looked upon 
it as a hard sentence ? Would they not have looked 
upon it as oppressive and cruel ? North Carolina has 
supplied the Western States with a large proportion 
of her population, fur the reason that by g'oing West 
they could better their condition. Who would pre- 
vent them from doing it ? Who would say to the 
poor man in North Carolina, that has no land of his 
own to cultivate, that lives upon some barren angle, 
or some piny plain, or in some other State upon some 
stony ridge, that lie must plough and dig the land 
appointed to him by his landlord, and that he is not 
to emigrate to any place where he can better his con- 
dition ? What is his prospect ? He has to live poor; 
he has to live hard ; and, in the end, when he dies, 
poverty, want, is the only inheritance he can leave 
liis children. There is no one who has a higher 
appreciation of North Carolina than I have; she is my 
native State. I found it to be my interest to emigrate, 
and I should have thought it cruel and hard if I Inid 
been told that I could not leave her boundary. Al 
though North Carolina did not afford me the advan- 
tages of education, though I cannot speak in thfi. 
language of the schoolmen, and call her my cherishing 
mother, yet, in the language of Cowper, ' with all hei 
faults, I love her still.' She is still my mother ; she 
is ray native State; and I love her as such, and I love 
her people too. But what an idea is it to present, as 
influencing the action of a statesman, that people may 
not emigrate from one State to another ! Sir, I say 
let a man go anywhere within the boundaries of the 
United States where he can better his condition. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 99 

"Mr. President, if I entertained the notions that 
some of my friends who oppose this bill do, I should 
be a more ardent advocate of its policy than I am 
now, if that were possible. My friend from Alabama* 
entertains some strange notions in reference to de- 
mocracy and the people ; and in his speech on the 
fisheries bill, he gave this proposition a kind of side- 
blow, a lick by indirection. I do not object to that ; 
but if I entertained his opinions, I should be a more 
determined and zealous advocate of the policy of this 
bill than I am now, if that were possible. In his 
speech upon the Lecompton Constitution, that senator, 
in speaking of the powers of the convention which 
framed the Constitution, said : 

" ' In my opinion, they would have acted in stricter 
accordance with the spirit and genius of our institu- 
tions if they had not submitted it in whole or in part 
to the popular vote. Our governments are republics, 
not democracies. The people exercise their sov- 
ereignty, not in person at the ballot-box, but through 
agents, delegates, or representatives. Our fathers 
founded republican governments in preference to de- 
mocracies, not so much because it would be impracti- 
cable as because it would be unwise and inexpedient 
for the people themselves to assemble and adopt 



laws.' 

" I have always thought the general idea had been 
that it was not practicable to do every thing in a strict 
democratic sense, and that it was more convenient for 
the people to appear through their delegates. But 
the senator said further : 

* Mr. Clay, 



100 ANDREW JonjsrsoN. 

" ' They were satisfied, from reading and reflection, 
of the truth of Mr. Madison's observation about pure 
democracies, that they " have ever been spectacles of 
turbulence and contention; have ever been found in- 
compatible with personal security, or the rights of 
property; and have, in general, been as short in their 
lives as they have been violent in their deaths." 

* * * * 4: * 

" ' They knew that a large body of men is more 
liable to be controlled by passion or by interest than 
a single individual, and is more apt to sacrifice the 
rights of the minority, because it can be done with 
more impunity. Hence they endeavored to impose 
restraints upon themselves. Hence they committed 
the making of all their laws, organic or municipal, 
to their delegates or representatives, whose crimes 
they could punish, whose errors they could correct, 
and whose powers they could reclaim. 

. " ' The great security of our rights of life, liberty, 
and propert}'' is in the responsibility of those who 
make and of those who execute the law. Establish 
as a principle that, to give sanction to law, it must 
be approved by a majority at the ballot-box, and you 
take away this security and surrender those rights to 
the most capricious, rapacious, and cruel of tyrants. 
I regret to see the growing spirit in Congress and 
throughout the country to democratize our Govern- 
ment ; to submit every question, whether pertaining 
to organic or municipal laws, to the vote of the 
people. This is sheer radicalism ; it is the Red Re- 
publicanism of revolutionary France, which appealed 
to the sections on all occasions, and not the Ameri- 
can Republicanism of our fathers. Their republican- 



SERVICES AIs^D SPEECHES. 101 

ism was stable and conservative ; tin's is mutable 
and revolutionary. Theirs aflbrded a shield for the 
minority; this gives a sword to the majority. Theirs 
defended the rights of the weak ; this surrenders 
them to the power of the strong. God forbid that 
the demagogism of this da}'^ should prevail over the 
philanthropic and philosophic statesmanship of our 
fathers.' 

" In the same speech the senator said : 
" ' Property is the foundation of every social fabric. 
To preserve, protect, and perpetuate rights of prop- 
erty, society is formed and government is framed.' 

" Now, if I entertained these notions, I should un- 
questionably go for the homestead bill. I am free to 
say, here, that I do not hold the doctrine advanced by 
the honorable gentleman from Alabama to the extent 
that he goes. I believe the people are capable of 
self-government. I think they have demonstrated it 
most clearly ; and I do not think the senator's history 
of democracy states the case as it should be. I pre* 
sume in the senator's own State the people acted 
directly upon their Constitution at the ballot-box. 
That is the organic law. If they did not there, they 
have done so in most of the States of the Union ; not, 
perhaps, in the original formation of their govern- 
ments, but as the people have gone on and advanced 
in popular government. The honorable senator seems 
to be opposed to democratizing — in other Avords, he 
is opposed to popularizing our institutions ; he is 
afraid to trust the control of things to the people at 
the ballot-box. Why, sir, the organic law which 
confers all the power upon your State legislatures, 
creates the different divisions, different departments 



102 ANDREW JOHjS'SON. 

of the State. The Government is controlled at the 
ballot-box, and the doctrine set forth in the Constitu- 
tion of Alabama is, that the people have a right to 
abolish and change their form of government when 
they think proper. The principle is clearly recog- 
nized ; and on this my honorable friend and myself 
difier essentially. I find a similar doctrine laid down 
in a pamphlet which I have here : 

" ' In the convention that framed the Constitution 
of the United States, Gouverneur Morris said, that 
" Property is the main object of society." Mr. King 
said, " Property is the primary object of society." Mr. 
Butler contended strenuously that " Property was the 
only just measurer of representation. This was the 
great object of government; the great cause of war; 
the great means of carrying it on." Mr. Madison said, 
that " in future times a great majority of the people 
will not only be without landed, but anj- other sort of 
property. These will either combine under the influ- 
ence of their common situation — in which case the 
right of property and the public liberty v/ill not be 
secure in their hands — or, what is more probable, 
they will become the tools of opulence and ambition." 
Gouverneur Morris again said, "Give the votes to the 
people who have no property, and they will sell them 
to the rich, who will be able to buy them. We should 
Eot confine our attention to the present moment. The 
time is not far distant when this country will abound 
with mechanics and manufacturers, who will receive 
their bread from their employers. Will such men be 
the secure and faithful guardians of liberty ?" Madi- 
son remarks, that those who opposed the property 
basis of representation did so on the ground that tho 



SERVICES AND SrEECHES, 103 

number of people was a fair index to the amount of 
property in an}'^ district.' 

"These are not notions entertained by me; but they 
are important as the notions of some of our public 
men at the early formation of our Government. I 
entertain no such notions. If, however, the senator 
from Alabama holds that property is the main object 
and basis of society, he, above all other men, ought 
to go for this bill, so as to place every man in the 
possession of a home and an interest in his country. 
The very (doctrine that he lays down appeals to him 
trumpet-tongued, and asks him to place these men in 
a condition where they can be relied upon. His argu- 
ment is unanswerable, if it be true, in favor of the 
homestead bill. It is taking men out of a dependent 
condition; it is preventing this Government from sink- 
ing into that condition that Rome did in her decline. 
I ask him now, if he entertains these opinions, as 
promulgated in his speech, to come up and join with 
us in the passage of this bill, and make every man, 
if possible, a property-holder, interested in his coun- 
try; give him a basis to settle upon, and make him 
reliable at the ballot-box. 

" His speech is a fine production. I heard it with 
interest at the time it was delivered. I hold the 
opposite to him. Instead of the voice of the people 
being the voice of a demon, I go back to the old idea, 
an^l I favor the policy of popularizing all our free 
institutions. We are Democrats, occupying a posi- 
tion here from the South ; we start together, but we 
turn our backs upon each other very soon. His policy 
would take the Government further from the people. 
I go in a direction to popularize it, and bring it nearer 



104 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

to the people. There is no better iUustration of this 
than that old maxim, which is adopted in all our ordi- 
nary transactions, that 'if you want a thing done, 
send somebody to do it; if you want it well done, go 
and do it yourself.' It applies with as great force in 
governmental affairs as in individual affairs; and if 
we can advance and make the workings and operation 
of our Government familiar to and understood by the 
people, the better for us. I say, when and wherever 
it is practicable, let the people transact their own 
business; bring them more in contact with their Gov- 
ernment, and then you will arrest expenditure, you 
will arrest corruption, you will have a purer and 
better Government. 

"I hold to the doctrine that man can be advanced; 
that man can be elevated; that man can be exalted 
in his cbaiiicter and condition. We are told, on high 
authority, that he is made in the image of his God; 
that he is endowed with a certain amount of divinity. 
And I believe man can be elevated ; man can become 
more and more endowed with divinity; and as he does, 
he becomes more Godlike in his character and capable 
of governing himself Let us go on elevating our 
people, perfecting our institutions, until democracy 
shall reach such a point of perfection that we can 
exclaim with truth that the voice of the people is the 
voice of God. 

"As I said, I have entertained different notions from 

« 

those inculcated by the honorable senator. If I enter- 
tained his notions, then I should be for the homestead. 
I hold in my hand a document, by which it was pro 
claimed in 1116 — 

"■ 'We hold these truths to be Belf-evident: that all 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 105 

men are created equal; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness; that to secure these rights governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
the consent of the governed.' 

" Is property laid down there as the great element 
and the great basis of society? It is only one; and 
Mr. Jefierson laid it down in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, that it was a self-evident truth that govern- 
ment was instituted — for what ? To protect men in 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is 
what Mr. Jefferson said. And who indorsed it ? The 
men who framed the Declaration of Independence, 
who did not go upon the idea that property was the 
only element of society. The doctrine established by 
those who proclaimed our independence was, that 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were three 
great ends of government, and not property exclu- 
sively. When the declaration came forth from the 
old Congress Hall, it came forth as a column of fire 
and light. It declared that the security of life and 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were the three 
great ends of government. Mr. Jefferson says, in his 
first inaugural address, which is the greatest paper 
that has ever been written in this Government — and 
I commend it to the reading of those who say they 
are Democrats, by way of refreshing their memories, 
that they may understand what are correct demo- 
cratic principles — 

" ' Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted 
with the government of himself. Can he, then, be 
trusted with the government of others ? Or have we 

5* 



106 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

found angels in the form of kings to govern him ? 
Let history answer this question.' 

" Mr. Jefferson seems to think man can be trusted 
with the government of himself In the Declaration 
of Independence he does not embrace property ; in 
fact, it is not referred to. But I am willing to con- 
cede that it is one of the primary and elementary 
principles in government. Mr. Jefferson declares the 
great truth that man is to be trusted ; that man is 
capable of governing himself, and that he has a right 
to govern himself. In the same inaugural address 
of Mr. Jefferson, we find the passage usually attributed 
to Washington's farewell address, which has got 
universal circulation — that we should pursue our own 
policy; that we should promote our own institutions, 
maintaining friendly relations with all, entangling 
alliances with none. Let us carry out the doctrines 
of the inaugural address of Mr: Jefferson; let us carry 
out the great principles laid down in the Declaration 
of Independence, which this homestead bill embraces. 

" But I wish to call attention to some other author- 
ity on this subject. As contradistinguished from the 
views of the senator from Alabama, I present the 
views of a recent writer* as in accordance with my 
own notions of democracy : 

" ' The democratic party represents the great prin- 
ciple of progress. It is onward and outward in its 
movements. It has a heart for action, and motives 
for a world. It constitutes the principle of diffusion, 
and is to humanity what the centrifugal force is to 
the revolving orbs of a universe. What motion is to 

* Lamartine. 



SEEVICES AND SPEECHES. 107 

them, democracy is to principle. It is the soul in 
action. It conforms to the providence of God. It has 
confidence in man, and an abiding reliance in his high 
destiny. It seeks the largest liberty, the greatest 
good, and the surest happiness. It aims to build up 
the great interests of the many, to the least detriment 
of the few. It remembers the past, without neglect- 
ing the present. It establishes the present, without 
fearing to provide for the future. It cares for the 
weak, while it permits no injustice to the strong. It 
conquers the oppressor, and prepares the subjects of 
tyrann}'^ for freedom. It melts the bigot's heart to 
meekness, and reconciles his mind to knowledge. It 
dispels the clouds of ignorance and superstition, and 
prepares the people for instruction -and self-respect. 
It adds wisdom to legislation, and improved judgment 
to government. It favors enterprise that yields a 
reward to the many and an industry that is permanent. 
It is the pioneer of humanity — the conservator of 
nations. It fails only when it ceases to be true to 
itself. Vox populi, vox Dei, has proved to be both 
a proverb and a prediction, 

" ' It is a mistake to suppose that democracy may 
not be advanced under different forms of government. 
Its own, it should be remembered, is the highest con- 
ventional form, that which precedes the lofty inde- 
pendence of the individual spoken of by the Apostle 
to the Hebrews, who will need government but from 
the lav/ which the Lord has placed in his heart. 

" ' In one respect, all nations are governed upon the 
same principle; that is, each adopts the form which it 
has the understanding and the power to sustain. There 
is in all a greater or lesser power, and it requires no 



108 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

profound speculation to decide -which will control. A 
tyrannical dictator may do more to advance the true 
interests of democracy, than a moderate sovereign 
who is scrupulously gniarded by an antiquated con- 
stitution ; for the tyrant adds vigor to his opponents 
by his deeds of oppression. 

" ' The frequent question as to what foinn of govern- 
ment is best, is often answered without any reference 
to condition or application of principles. There caii 
be pr'operly but one answer, and yet the application 
of that answer may }ead to great diversity of views. 

" ' When it is assei'ted that the democratic form of 
government is unquestionably the best, it must be 
considered that the answer not only designates the 
form preferred, but implies a confident belief in the- 
advanced condition of the people who are to be the sub- 
jects of it. It premises the capacity for self-controP, 
and a corresponding- degree of knowledge in regard 
to the rights, balances, and necessities of societ}'". It 
involves a discriminating appreciation of the varied 
duties of the man, the citizen, and the legislator. It 
presupposes a reasonable knowledge of the legitimate 
means and ends of government, enlarged views of 
humanity, and of the elements of national existence. 

" ' The democratic form of government is the best^ 
"because its standard of moral requisition is the highest. 
it claims for man a universality of interest, liberty, 
and justice. It is. Christianity with its mountain 
beacons and guides. It is the standard of Deity based 
on the eternal principles of truth, passing through and 
rising above the yielding clouds of ignorance, into the- 
regions of infinite wisdom. As we live on, thi& 
" pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of Sve by 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 109 

uight," will not be taken from before the people, but 
stand immovable, immeasurable, and in the brightness 
of its glory continue to shed increasing light on a 
world and a universe. 

" ' The great objects of knowledge and moral cul- 
ture of the people are among its most prominent pro- 
visions. Practical religion and religious freedom are 
thg sunshine of its growth and glory. It is the sub- 
lime and mighty standard spoken of by the Psalmist, 
who exclaims, in the beautiful language of poetical 
conception — 

" ' The Lord is high above all nations, and his 
glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the Lord 
our God, who dwelleth on high ; who humbleth him- 
self to behold the things that are in heaven and in 
the earth ? He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 
and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may 
set him with princes, even with the princes of the people. 

" ' Democracy is a permanent element of prog-ress, 
and is present evei'ywhere, whatever may be the 
temporary form of the ruling power. Its inextinguish- 
able fires first burst forth in an empire, and its wel- 
come lights cheer the dark domains of despotism. 
While tyrants hate the patriot and exile him from 
their contracted dominions, the spirit of democracy 
invests him as a missionary of humanity, and inspires 
him with an eloquence which moves a world. Its 
lightning rays cannot be hidden ; its presence cannot 
be banished. Dictators, kings, and emperors, are but 
its servants ; and, as man becomes elevated to the 
dignity of self-knowledge and control, their adminis- 
tration ceases. Their rule indicates an imperfect 
state of society, and may be regarded as the moral 



110 ANDKEW JOHiSTSON. 

props of the builder, necessary only to sustain a 
people in their different periods of growth. One can- 
not speak of them lightly, nor indulge in language 
that should seem to deny their fitness as the instru- 
ments of good in the hands of Providence. Their true 
position may be best gathered from the prediction 
which is based upon a knowledge of the past and 
present condition of man — that all kingdoms and 
empires must cease whenever a people have a know- 
ledge of their rights, and acquire the power of a 
practical application of principles. This is the work 
of time. It is the work of constant, repeated trial. 
The child that attempts to step a hundred times and 
falls ; the new-fledged bird that tries its feeble wings 
again and again before it is able to sweep the circle 
of the sky with its kindred flocks, indicate the simple 
law upim which all strength depends, whether it be 
the strength of an insect, or the strength of a nation. 
" ' Because a people do not succeed in changing 
their form of government, even after repeated trials, 
we are not to infer that they are indulging in imprac- 
ticable experiments, nor that they will be disappoint- 
ed in ultimately realizing the great object of their 
ambition. Indeed, all failures of this class are indica- 
tive of progressive endeavor. They imply an increas- 
ing knowledge of the true dignity of man, and a 
growing disposition to engage in new and more and 
more difficult endeavors. These endeavors are but 
the exercise of a nation, and without them no people 
can ever command the elements of national existence 
and self-control. But inquiries in regard to so exten- 
sive a subject should be shaped within more practical 
limits 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. Ill 

"'The triumphs of democracy constitute the way- 
marks of the world. They demand no extraneous 
element of endurance for permanency, no fictitious 
splendor for embellishment, no borrowed greatness 
for glory. Originating in the inexhaustible sources 
of power, moved by the spirit of love and liberty, and 
guided by the wisdom which comes from the instincts 
and experience of the immortal soul, as developed in 
the people, democracy exists in the imperishable prin- 
ciple of progress, and registers its achievements in 
the institutions of freedom, and in the blessings which 
characterize and beautify the realities of life. Its 
genius is to assert and advance the true dignity of 
mind, to elevate the motives and affections of man, 
and to extend, establish, protect, and equalize the 
common rights of humanity. 

" 'Condorcet, although an aristocrat by genius and 
by birth, became a Democrat from philosophy.' 

" A few years since a Whig member of the United 
States Senate sneeringly asked Senator Allen, of Ohio, 
the question, ' What is democracy V The following 
was the prompt reply : 

" 'Democracy is a sentiment not to be appalled, cor- 
rupted, or compromised. It knows no baseness ; it 
cowers to no danger ; it oppresses no weakness ; 
destructive only of despotism, it is the sole conserva- 
tor of liberty, labor, and property. It is the senti- 
ment of freedom, of equal rights, of equal obligations 
— the law of nature pervading the law of the land.' 

" 'What, sir,' asked Patrick Henry, in the Virginia 
Convention of 1778, 'is the genius of democracy? 
Let me read that clause of the Bill of Rights of Vii-- 
ginia which relates to this (third clause) ; That gov- 



112 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

erument is or ought to be instituted for the common 
benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, 
or community : of all the various modes and forms of 
government, that is best which is capable of produ- 
cing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and 
is most effectually secured against the dangers of 
mal-administration ; and that when any government 
shall be found inadequate or contrary to those prin- 
ciples, or contrai-y to those purposes, a majority of 
the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and 
indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in 
such manner as shall be judged the most conducive to 
the public weal.'* 

" In the same convention Judge Marshall said — 

" 'What are the favorite maxims of democracy ? A 
strict observance of justice and public faith, and a 
steady adherence to virtue ; — these, sir, are the prin- 
ciples of a good government. 'f 

" ' Democracy,' says the late Mr. Legare, of South 
Carolina, in an article published in the New York 
Review, 'in the high and only true sense of that 
much-abused word, is the destiny of nations, because 
it is the spirit of Christianity.'! 

" I have referred to the remarks of the senator from 
Alabama to show that, if his doctrines were true, he 
should go for the passage of the homestead bill, be- 
cause, in order to sustain the Government on the prin- 
ciples laid down by him, every man should be a prop- 
erty-holder. I want it understood that I enter a 
disclaimer to the doctrine presented by him, and merely 

* Elliot's Debates, vol. iii., p. 77. f Ibid., p. 233. 

J Ibid , vol. v., p. 297. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 113 

present his argument to show why he, above all 
others, ought to go for the homestead policy. I refer 
to Mr. Legare, Judge Marsliall, and the author of the 
' History of Democracy,' as laying down my notions 
of democracy, as contradistinguished from those laid 
down by the distinguished senator from Alabama. 
We are both members from the Democratic party. I 
claim to be a Democrat, East, West, North, or South, 
or anywhere else. I have nothing to disguise. I 
have referred to the Declaration of Independence, and 
to Mr. Jefferson's inaugural address, for the purpose 
of showing that democracy means something very dif- 
ferent from what was laid down by the distinguished 
senator from Alabama. I furthermore refer to th6se 
important documents to show that property is not the 
leading element of government and society. Mr. 
Jefferson lays down, as truths to be self-evident, that 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the lead- 
ing essentials of government. 

" But it is not my purpose to dwell longer on that ; 
and I wish to pass to the speech of the senator from 
South Carolina.* I disagree in much that was said 
by that distinguished senator ; and I wish to show 
that he ought to go for the homestead policy, so as to 
interest every man in the country. If property is the 
leading and principal element on which society rests ; 
if property is the main object for which government 
was created, the gentlemen who are the foremost, the 
most zealous, and most distinguished advocates of 
that doctrine should sustain the homestead policy. 
The honorable senator from South Carolina, in hia 

* Mr. Hammond. 



Hi ANDREW JOHNSON. 

speech on the Lecompton Constitution, by inuendo 
or indirection, had a hit at the homestead — a side- 
blow. He said : 

" ' Your people are awaking. They are coming 
here. They are thundering at our doors for home- 
steads, one hundred and sixty acres of land for 
nothing ; and Southern senators are supporting them. 
Nay, they are assembling, as I have said, with arms 
in their hands, and demanding work at §1,000 a year 
for six hours a day. Have you heard that the ghosts 
of Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in the 
streets of your great cities ? That the Inquisition is 
at hand?' 

" If this be true, as assumed by the distinguished 
senator from South Carolina, is it not an argument 
why men should be placed in a condition where they 
will not clamor, where they will not raise mobs to 
threaten Government, and demand homesteads ? In- 
terest these men in the country; give them homes, oi 
let them take homes ; let them become producers ; let 
them become better citizens; let them be more reliable 
at the ballot-box. I want to take them on their 
ground, their principle, that property is the main ele- 
ment of society and of government; and if their doc- 
trine be true, the argument is still stronger in favor 
of the homestead than the position I assume. But 
the distinguished senator from South Carolina goes on: 

" ' In all social systems there must be a class to do 
the njenial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. 
Tliat is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect, 
and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, 
f.delity. Such a class you must have, or you would 
uot have that other class which leads progress, civili- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 115 

zation, and refinement. It eonstitutes the very mud- 
sill of society and of political government; and you 
mig-ht as well attempt to build a house in tlie air, as 
to build citlier the one or the other except on this 
mudsill. 

" ' The poor ye always have with 3''ou; for the man 
■who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, 
and who has to put out his labor in the market, and 
take the best he can get for it — in short, your whole 
hireling class of manual laborers and " operatives," as 
you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference 
between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and 
well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, 
no want of employment among our people; and not 
too much employment either. Yours are hired by the 
day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which 
may be proved in the most painful manner, at any 
hour, in any street in any of your large towns. Why, 
you meet more beggars in one day, in any single 
street of the city of New York, than you would meet 
ill a lifetime in the whole South. We do not think 
that whites should be slaves either by law or neces- 
sity.' 

" In this portion of the senator's remarks I concur. 
I do not think whites should be slaves; and if slavery 
is to exist in this country, I prefer black slavery to 
white slavery. Bat what I want to get at is, to show 
that my worthy friend from South Carolina should 
defend the homestead policy, and the impolicy of 
making the invidious remarks that have been made 
here in reference to a portion of the population of the 
United States. Mr. President, so far as I am con- 
cerned, I feel that I can afford to speak what are my 



116 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

sentiments. I am no aspirant for any thing- on the 
face of God Ahnighty's earth. I have reached the 
summit of my ambition. The acme of all my hopes 
has been attained, and I would not g-ive the position I 
occupy here to-day for any other in the United State.^. 
Hence, I say, I can afford to speak what I believe to 
be true. 

" In one sense of the term, we are all slaves. A man 
is a slave to his ambition; he is a slave to his avarice; 
he is a slave to his necessities; and, in enumerations 
of this kind, you can scarcely find any man, high or 
low in society, hui who, in some sense, is a slave; but 
they are not slaves in the sense we mean at the South, 
and it will not do to assume that every man who toils 
for his living- is^ slave. If that be so, all are slaves ; 
for all must toil more or less, mentally or physically. 
But in the other sense of the term, we are not slaves. 
Will it do to assume that the man who labors with 
his hands, every man who is an operative in a manu- 
facturing establishment or a shop, is a slave ? No, 
sir ; that will not do. Will it do to assume that every 
man who does not own slaves, but has to live by his 
own labor, is a slave ? That will not do. If this 
were true, it would be very unfortunate for a good 
many of us, and especially so for me. I am a laborer 
with my hands, and I never considered myself a slave, 
in the acceptation of the term slave in the South. I 
do own some ; I acquired them by my industry, by 
the labor of my hands. In that sense of the term I 
should have been a slave while I was earning them 
with the labor of my hands." 

" Mr. HAMMONn. Will the senator define a slave ? 

" Mr. JoHxsoN. What we understand to be a slave 



SERVJC?:S AND SPEECHES. 117 

in the South is a person who is held to service during 
his or her natural life, subject to, and under the con- 
trol of, a master who has the right to appropriate the 
products of his or her labor to his own use. The ne- 
cessities of life, and the various positions in which a 
man may be placed, operated upon by avarice, gain, 
or ambition, may cause him to labor ; but that does 
not make a slave. How many men are there in society 
who go out and work with their own hands, who reap 
in the field and mow in a meadow, who hoe corn, who 
work in the shops 1 Are they slaves ? If we were 
to go back and follow out this idea, that every oper- 
ative and laborer is a slave, we should find that we 
have had a great many distinguished slaves since the 
world commenced. Socrates, who first conceived the 
idea of the immortality of the soul, pagan as he was, 
labored with his own hands ; yes, wielded the chisel 
and the mallet, giving polish and finish to the stone ; 
he afterwards turned to be a fashioner and constructor 
of the mind. Paul, the great expounder, himself was 
a tent-maker, and worked with his hands : was he a 
slave? Archimedes, who declared that, if he had a 
place on which to rest the fulcrum, with the power 
of his lever he could move the world : was he a slave ? 
Adam, our great father and head, the lord of the world, 
was a tailor by trade : I wonder if he was a slave ? 
" When we talk about laborers and operatives, look 
at the columns that adorn this chamber, and see their 
finish and style. We are lost in admiration at the 
architecture of your buildings, and their massive col- 
umns. We can speak with admiration. What would 
it have been but for hands to construct it ? Was the 
artisan who worked upon it a slave ? Let us go to 



118 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

the South and see how the matter stands there. Is 
every man that is not a slaveholder to be denominated 
a slave because he labors ? Why indulge in such a 
notion ? The argument cuts at both ends of the line, 
and this kind of doctrine does us infinite harm in the 
South. There are operatives there ; there are labor- 
ers there ; there are mechanics there. Are they 
slaves ? Who is it in the South that gives us title 
and security to the institution of slavery ? Who is 
it, let me ask every Southerner around me ? Suppose, 
for instance, we take the State of South Carolina — 
and there are many things about her and her people 
that I admire — we find that the 384,984 slaves in 
South Carolina are owned by how many whites ? 
They are owned by 25,556. Take the State of Ten- 
nessee, with a population of 800,000 — 239,000 slaves 
are owned by 33,864 persons. The slaves in the State 
of Alabama are owned by 29,295 whites. The whole 
number of slaveholders in all the Slave States, when 
summed up, makes 347,000, owning three and a half 
million slaves. The white population in South 
Carolina is 214,000 ; the slaves greater than the 
whites. The aggregate population of the State is 
668,507. 

"The operatives in South Carolina are 68,549. Now, 
take the 25,000 slave-owners out, and a large propor- 
tion of the people of South Carolina work with their 
hands. Will it do to assume that, in the State of 
South Carolina, the State of Tennessee, the State of 
Alabama, and the other slaveholding States, all those 
who do not own slaves are slaves themselves ? AVill 
this assumption do ? What does it do at home in our 
own States ? It has a tendency to raise prejudice, to 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 119 

engender opposition to the institution of slavery itself. 
Yet our own folks will do it." 

Mr. Mason: " Will the senator from Tennessee allow 
me to interrupt him for a moment V 

Mr. Johnson : " Yes, sir." 

Mr. Mason: " The senator is making an exhibition of 
the very few slaveholders in the Southern States, in 
proportion to the white population, according to the 
census. That is an exhibition which has been made 
before by senators who sit on the other side of the 
Chamber. They have brought before the American 
people what they allege to be the fact, shown by the 
census, that of the white population in the Southern 
States, there are very few who are slaveholders. The 
senator from Tennessee is now doing the same thing. 
I understand him to say there are but some — I do not 
remember exactly the number, but I think three 
thousand, or a fraction more — of the whites in the 
slaveholding States, who own three million slaves ; 
but he made no further exposition. I ask the senator 
to state the additional fact, that the holders of the 
shaves are the heads of families of the white popula- 
tion ; and neither that senator nor those whose ex- 
ample he has followed on tlie other side, has stated 
the fact that the white population in the Southern 
States, as in the other States, embraces men, women, 
and children. He has exhibited only the number of 
slaveholdei's who are heads of families." 

Mr. Johnson : " The senator says I have not made an 
exhibit of the fact. The senator interrupted me before 
I had concluded. I gave way as a matter of courtesy 
to him. Perhaps his speech would have had no place, 
if he had waited to hear me a few moments longer." 



N. 



120 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

Mr. Mason : " I shall wait. I thought the senator 
had passed that point." 

Mr. JoHxsoN : " I was stating the fact, that accord- 
ing to the census tables three hundred and fortj^-seven 
thousand white persons owned the whole number of 
slaves in the Southern States. I was about to state 
that the families holding these slaves might average 
six or eight or ten persons, all of whom are interested 
in the products of slave-labor, and many of these 
slaves are held by minors and by females. I was not 
alluding to the matter for the purpose the senator 
from Virginia seems to have intimated, and should 
have been much obliged to him if he had waited until 
he heard my application of these figures. I was 
going to show that expressions like those to which I 
have alluded operate against us in the South, and I 
was following the example of no one. I was taking 
these facts from the census tables, which wei'e pub- 
lished by order of Congress, to show the bad policy 
and injustice of declaring that the laboring portion of 
our population were slaves and menials. Such dec- 
larations should not be applied to the people either 
North or South. I wished to say in that connection, 
that, in my opinion, if a few men at the North and at 
the South, who entertain extreme views on the subject 
of slavery, and desire to keep up agitation, were out 
of the way, the great mass of the people, North and 
South, would go on prosperously and harmoniously 
under our institutions. 

3jC 5(C m 3JC J^ ^ 

" Sir, caiTv out the homestead policy, attach the 
people to the soil, induce them to love the Govern- 
ment, and vou will have the North reconciled to the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 121 

South, and the South to the North, and we shall not 
have invidious doctrines preached to stir up bad feel- 
ings in either section. I know that in my own State, 
and in the other Southern States, the men who do not 
own slaves are among the first to take care of the 
institution. They will submit to no encroachment 
from abroad, no interference from other sections. 

" I have said, Mr. President, much more than I in- 
tended to say, and, I fear, in rather a desultory 
manner, but I hope I have made myself understood, 
I heard that some gentleman was going to offer an 
amendment to this bill, providing that the Govern- 
ment should furnish every man with a slave. So far 
as I am concerned, if it suited him, and his inclination 
led him that way, I wish to God every head of a 
family in the United States had one to take the 
drudgery and menial service off his family. I would 
have no objection to that ; but this intimation was 
intended as a slur upon my proposition. I want that 
to be determined by the people of the respective 
States, an^ not by the Congress of the United States. 
I do not want this body to interfere by inuendo or by 
amendment, prescribing that the people shall have 
this or the other. I desire to leave that to be deter- 
mined by the people of the respective States, and not 
by the Congress of the United States. 

" I hope, Mr. President, that this bill will be passed. 
I think it involves the very first principles of the 
Government ; it is founded upon statesmanship, hu- 
manity, philanthropy, and even upon Christianity 
itself. I know the argument has been made, why 
permit one portion of the people to go and take some 
of this land and not another ? The law is in general 

6 



122 ANDREW jonxsox. 

terms ; it places it in the power of every man who 
will go, to take a portion of the land. The Senator 
from Alabama sug-gests to me that a person, in order 
to get the benefit of this bill, mnst prove that he is 
not the owner of other land. An amendment was 
yesterday inserted in the bill striking out that provi- 
sion. Then it places all on an equality to go and 
take. Why should this not be done ? It was con- 
ceded yesterday that the land was owned by the peo- 
ple. There are over three million heads of families 
in the United States ; and if every man who is the 
head of a family were to take a quarter-section of 
public land, there would still be nearly four million 
quarter-sections left. If some people go and take 
qxiarter-sections, it does not interfere with the rights 
of others, for he who goes takes onlj'^ a part of that 
which is his, and takes nothing that belongs to any- 
body else. The domain belongs to the whole people ; 
the equity is in the great mass of the people ; the 
Government holds the fee and passes the title, but the 
beneficial interest is in the people. There are, as I 
have said, two quarter-sections of land for every head 
of a family in the United States, and we merely pro- 
pose to permit a head of a family to take one-half of 
that which belongs to him. 

" I believe the passage of this bill will strengthen 
the bonds of the Union. It will give us a better vot- 
ing population, and just in proportion as men become 
interested in property, they will become reconciled to 
all the institutions of property in the country, in 
whatever shape they may exist. Take the institution 
of slavery, for instance : would you rather trust it to 
the mercies of a people liable to be ruled by the mobs 



SERVICES ANrv SPEECHES. 123 

of which my honorable friend from South Carolina 
spoke, or would, you prefer an honest set of landhold- 
ers ? Which would be the most reliable ? Which 
would guarantee the greatest security to our institu- 
tions, when they come to the test of the ballot-box ? 

"Mr. President, I hope the Senate will pass this 
bill. I think it will be the'beginning of a new state 
of things — a new era, 

" So far as I am concerned — I say it not in any 
spirit of boasting or egotism — if this bill were passed, 
and the system it inaugurates carried out, of granting 
a reasonable quantity of land for a man's family, and 
looking far into the future I could see resulting from 
it a stable, an industrious, a hardy, a Christian, a 
philanthropic community, I should feel that the great 
object of my little mission was fulfilled. All that I 
desire is the honor and the credit of being one of the 
American Congress to consummate and to carry out 
this great scheme, that is to elevate our race and to 
make our institutions more permanent. I want no 
reputation, as some have insinuated. You may talk 
about Jacobinism, Red Republicanism, and so on. I 
pass by such insinuations as the idle wind, which 
I I'egard not. 

" I know the motives that prompt me to action. I 
can go back to that period in my own history when 
I could not say that I had a home. This being so, 
Avheu I cast my eyes from one extreme of the United 
States to the other, and behold the great number that 
are homeless, I feel fOr them. I believe this bill would 
put them in possession of homes ; and I want to see 
them rea-lizing that sweet conception when each man 
can proclaim, ' I have a home ; an abiding-place for 



124: ANDREW' JOHNSON. 

ray wife and for my children ; I am not the tenant of 
another; I am my own ruler; and I will move accord- 
ing to my own will, and not at the dictation of an- 
other.' Yes, Mr. President, if I should never be heard 
of again on the surface of God's habitable globe, the 
proud satisfaction of having contributed my little aid 
to the consummation of this great measure is all the 
reward I desire. 

" The people need friends. They have a great deal 
to bear. They make all ; they do all ; but how little 
they participate in the legislation of the country 1 
All, or nearly all, of our legislation is for corpora- 
tions, for monopolies, for classes, and individuals; but 
the great mass who produce while we consume are 
little cared for ; their rights and interests are neg- 
lected and overlooked. Let us, as patriots, as states- 
men, let us, as Christians, consummate this great 
measure, which will exert an influence throughout the 
civilized world in fulfilling our destiny. I thank the 
Senate for their attention." 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 125 



CHAPTEE III. 

STATE OF THE UNION. 

Two distinguishing qualities of President John- 
son's mind are firmness and independence. Con- 
vinced of the correctness of his opinions, he 
never shrinks from their natural and logical con- 
sequences. Opposed from the very outset of his 
career to the doctrine of tlie right of a State to 
withdraw at pleasure from the Federal Union, 
when the great and eventful crisis came he was 
ready to meet it with dauntless courage and 
unfaltering faith. He broke from old ties of 
personal and political associations without a 
moment's hesitation, and threw himself into the 
fight, "to do or die" in defence of the national 
flag and an undivided country. 

In a speech delivered in the Senate the 5th 
and 6th of February, 1861, after certain States 
had formally seceded and declared themselves 
separate and foreign communities, he seemed to 
rise with the occasion, and to pour forth in a 
stronger tide the power of his logic and the thun- 
der-roll of his eloquence. This great effort was 
on the state of the Union, the Senate having 



12G ANDREW JOHNSON. 

under consideration the message of the President 
communicating resohitions of the Legishature of 
A^irginia. Ghidly would we transcribe the whole 
of this able speech, in the course of which the 
heresy he combated was cut up by the roots and 
thrown to the winds, but our sj^ace will only per- 
mit the insertion of its thrilling and soul-stirring 
conclusion : 

" There is no one in the United States who is more 
willing to do justice to the distinguished senator from 
Mississippi than myself ; and when I consider his 
early education ; when I look at his gallant services, 
finding him first in the military school of the United 
States, educated by his Government, taught the sci- 
ence of war at the expense of his country — taught to 
love the principles of the Constitution ; afterwards 
entering its service, fighting beneath the Stars and 
Stripes to which he has so handsomely alluded, win- 
ning laurels that are green and imperishable, and 
bearing upon his person scars that are honorable ; 
some of which have been won at home ; others of 
which have been won in a foreign clime, and upon 
other fields — I would be the last man to pluck a feather 
from his cap or a single gem from the chaplet that 
encircles his brow. But when I consider his early 
associations ; when I remember that he was nurtured » 
by this Government ; that he fought for this Govern- 
ment ; that he won honors under the flag of this Gov- 
ernment, I cannot understand how he can be willing 
to hail another banner, and turn from that of his coun- 
try, under which he has won laurels and received 
honors. This is a matter of taste, however ; but it 



SEEVICES AND SPEECHES. 127 

seems to me that, if I could not unsheathe my sword 
in vindication of the flag- of my country, its glorious 
Stars and Stripes, I would return the sword to its 
scabbard ; I -w-ould never sheathe it in the bosom of 
my mother ; never ! never ! never 1" 

" Sir, I intend to stand by that flag, and by the 
Union of which it is the emblem. I agree with Mr. 
A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, ' that this Government of 
our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the ob- 
jects of all good governments than any other on th{ 
face of the earth.' 

" I have made allusions to the various senatoi's who 
have attacked me, in vindication of myself I have 
been attacked on all hands by some five or six,, and 
may be attacked again. All I ask is, that, in making 
these attacks, they meet my positions, answer my 
arguments, refute my facts. I care not for the num- 
ber that may have attacked me; I care not how many 
may come hereafter. Feeling that I am in the right, 
that argument, that fact, that truth are on my side, I 
place them all at defiance. Come one, come all ; for 
I feel, in the words of the great dramatic poet — 

* Thrice is lie armed that hath his quarrel j ust ; 
And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
Whose conscience with [treason] is corrupted.' 

/" I have been told, and I have heard it repeated, 
that this Union is gone. It has been said in tliis 
chamber, that it is in the cold sweat of death; that, 
in fact, it is really dead, and merely lying in state 
waiting for the funeral obsequies to be performed. 
If this be so, and the war that has been made upon 



128 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

me in consequence of advocating the Constitution and 
the Union is to result in my overthrow and in my 
destruction ; and that flag, that glorious flag, the 
emblem of the Union, which was borne by Washing- 
ton through a seven-years' struggle, shall be struck 
from the Capitol and trailed in the dust ; when this 
Union is interred, I want no more honorable winding- 
sheet than that brave old flag, and no more glorious 
grave than to be interred in the tomb of the Union. 
[Applause in the galleries.] For it I have stood; for 
it I will continue to stand ; I care not whence the 
blows come ; and some will find, before this contest 
is over, that while there ai'e blows to be given, there 
will be blows to receive ; and that, while others can 
thrust, there are some who can parry. God pi'eserve 
my country from the desolation that is threatening 
her, from treason and traitors I 

' Is there not some chosen curse. 
Some hidden thmider in the stores of heaven. 
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man 
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin V 

[Applause in the galleries.] 

" In conclusion, Mr. President, I make an appeal to 
the conservative men of all parties. You see the 
posture of public affairs ; you see the condition of 
the country ; you see along the line of battle thf 
various points of conflict; you see the struggle which 
the Union men have to maintain in many of the States 
You ought to know and feel what is necessary to sus- 
tain those who, in their hearts, desire the preservation 
of this Union of States. Will you sit with stoic in- 
difference, and see those who are willing to stand by 



?l 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 129 

the Constitution and upliold the pillars of the Govern- 
ment driven away by the raging surges that are now 
sweeping over some portions of the country ? As 
conservative men, as patriots, as men who desire the 
preservation of this great, this good, this unparalleled 
Government, I ask you to save the country; or let 
the propositions be submitted to the people, that the 
heart of the nation may respond to- them. I have an 
abiding confidence in the intelligence, the patriotism, 
and the integrity of the great mass of the people ; 
and I feel in my own heart that, if this subject could 
be got before them, they would settle the question, 
and the Union of these States would be preserved," 
[Applause in the galleries.] 

6* 



130 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

SPEECH ON THE WAR FOR THE UNION, DELIVERED IN 
THE SENATE, JULY 27, 1861. 

At last came tlie armed collision between the 
Federal authority and the Confederacy of the 
seceding States. The latter had planted their 
capital at Richmond, had organized an army, and 
in a terrible battle, fonght 21st Jul}^ 1861, had 
inflicted a signal defeat upon the Federal forces 
upon the field of Manassas. Amid the panic and 
discouragement that followed that disastrous day, 
Andrew Johnson stood steadfast as a rock, and 
displayed a resolution worthy of a Roman sena- 
tor in the best times of the repubHc. ^' Only six 
days after the sanguinary struggle, and while 
Washington itself was in danger of capture by 
the victorious foe, he spoke in favor of the joint 
resolution before the Senate to confirm and ap- 
prove certain acts of President Lincoln for sup- 
pressing insurrection and rebellion. In this 
speech he took the ground that the present con- 
test was the third and last trial of the country's 
strength. The first, he said, was in gaining her 
independence — the second, in defending herself 
against foreign invasion in the war of 1812 — the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 131 

third trial, lie averred, was now upon ns ; that the 
nation was fighting against enemies at home — 
' against those who have no confidence in its in- 
tegrity or in the institutions that may be estab- 
lished under its organic law: — whether we can 
succeed in putting down traitors and treason, 
and in estabhshing the great fact that we have a 
Government, with sufficient strength to maintain 
its existence against whatever combination may 
oppose its constitutional action. 

The conclusion of this noble effort is peculiarly 
exciting, and stirs the blood Hke the blast of a 
trumpet : 

" We love the Constitution as made by our fathers. 
We have confidence in the integrity and capacity of 
the people to govern themselves. We have lived 
,. entertaining these opinions : we intend to die enter- 
t taining them. The battle has commenced. The Presi- 
dent has placed it upon the true ground. It is an 
issue on the one hand for the jpeople's Government, 
and its overthrow on the other. We have commenced 
the battle of freedom. It is freedom's cause. We 
are resisting usurpation and oppression. We will 
triumph ; we must triumph. Right is with us. A 
great and fundamental principle of right, that lies at 
the foundation of all things, is with us. We may 
meet with impediments, and may meet with disasters, 
and here and there a defeat ; but ultimately freedom's 
cause must triumplDfor — 

' Freedom's battle once begun, 
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won.' 



132 ANDREW JOHNSOJS:. 

" Yes, we must triumph. Though sometimes 1 caij- 
not see my way clear, in matters of this kind as in 
matters of religion, when my facts give out, when my 
reason fails me, I draw largely upon my faith. My 
faith is strong, based on the eternal principles of 
right, that a thing so monstrously wrong as is this 
rebellion cannot triumph. Can we submit to it ? 
Can bleeding justice submit to it? Is the Senate, 
are the American people^ prepared to give up the 
graves of Washington and Jackson, to be encircled 
and governed and controlled by a combination of 
traitors and rebels ? I say, let the battle go on — it is 
freedom^s cause — until the Stars and Stripes (God 
bless them !) shall again be unfurled upon every 
cross-road, and from every house-top, throughout the 
Confederacy, north and south. Let the Union be re- 
instated ; let the law be enfortied ; let the Constitution 
be supreme. 

" If the Congress of the United States were to give 
up the tombs of Washington and Jackson, we should 
have rising up in our midst another Peter the Her- 
mit, in a much more righteous cause — foi^ ours is 
true, while his was a delusion — who would appeal 
to the American people, and point to the tombs of 
Washington and Jackson, in the possession of those 
who are worse than the infidel and the Turk who held 
the Holy Sepulchre. I believe the American people 
would start of their own accord, when appealed to, to 
redeem the graves of Washington and Jackson and 
Jeiferson, and all the other patriots who are lying- 
within the limits of the Southern Confederacy. I do 
not believe they would stop the march, until ag-aiii 
the flag of this Union should be placed over the graves 



SEKVICES AjSTD SPEECHES. 133 

of those distinguished men. There will be an uprising. 
Do not talk about Republicans now ; do not talk about 
Democrats now ; do not talk about Whigs or Ameri- 
cans now : talk about your country, and the Consti- 
tution, and the Union. Save that ; preserve the 
integrity of the Government ; once more place it 
erect among the nations of the earth ; and then, if we 
want to divide about questions that may arise in our 
midst, we have a Government to divide in. 

" I know it has been said that the object of this 
war is to make war on Southern institutions. I have 
been in free States and I have been in slave States, 
and I thank God that, so far as I have been, there has 
been one universal disclaimer of any such purpose. 
It is a war upon no section ; it is a war upon no 
peculiar institution ; but it is a war for the integrity 
of the Government, for the Constitution, and the 
supremacy of the laws. That is what the nation 
understands by it. 

" The people whom I represent appeal to the Gov- 
ernment and to the nation to give us the constitutional 
protection that we need. I am proud to say that I 
have met with every manifestation of that kind in the 
Senate, with only a few dissenting voices. I am 
proud to say, too, that I believe old Kentucky (God 
bless her !) will ultimately rise and shake off the 
stupor which has been resting upon her ; and instead 
of denying us the privilege of passing through her 
borders, and taking ax'ms and munitions of war to 
enable a downtrodden people to defend themselves, 
will not only give ns that privilege, but will join us 
and help us in the work. The people of Kentucky 
love the Union ; they love the Constitution ; they 



134 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

have no fault to find with it ; but in that State they 
have a duplicate to the Governor of ours. When we 
look all around, we see liow the Governors of the differ- 
ent States have been involved in this conspiracy — the 
most stupendous and gigantic conspiracy that was 
ever formed, and as corrupt and as foul as that at- 
tempted by Catiline in the days of Rome. We know 
it to be so. Have we not known men to sit at their 
desks in this Chamber, using the Government's sta- 
tionery to write treasonable letters ; and while re- 
ceiving their pay, sworn to support the Constitution 
and sustain the law, engaging in midnight conclaves 
to devise ways and means by which the Government 
and the Constitution should be overthrown ? The 
charge was made and published in the papers. Many 
things we know that we cannot fully prove ; but we 
know from the regular steps that were taken in this 
work of breaking up the Government, or trying to 
break it up, that there was system, concert of action. 
It is a scheme more corrupt than the assassination 
pi aimed and conducted by Catiline in reference to the 
Roman Senate. The time has arrived when we shoul(J 
show to the nations of the earth that we are a nation 
capable of preserving our existence, and give them 
evidence that we will do it. 

" I have already detained the Senate much longer 
than I intended when I rose, and I shall conclude in a 
few words more. Although the Government has met 
with a little reverse within a short distance of this 
city, no one should be discouraged and no heart should 
be dismayed. It ought only to prove the necessity of 
bringing forth, and exerting still more vigorously, the 
power of the Government in maintenance of the Con- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 135 

stitution and the laws. Let the energies of the Gov- 
ernment be redoubled, and let it go on with this war — 
not a war upon sections, not a war upon peculiar in- 
stitutions anywhere ; but let the Constitution and the 
Union be inscribed on its banners, and the supremacy 
and enforcement of the laws be its watchword. Then 
it can, it will, go on triumphantly. \ We must succeed. 
This Government must not, cannot fail. Though your 
flag may have trailed in the dust ; though a retrograde 
movement may have been made ; though the banner 
of our countiy may have been sullied, let it still be 
borne onward ; and if, for the prosecution of this war 
in behalf of the Government and the Constitution, it 
is necessary to cleanse and purify that banner, I say 
let it be baptized in fire from the sun and bathed in a 
nation's blood ! The nation must be redeemed ; it 
must be triumphant. The Constitution — which is 
based upon principles immutable, and upon which 
rest the rights of man and the hopes and expecta- 
tions of those who love freedom throughout the civi- 
lized world — must be maintained." 



136 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE V. 

SPEECH ON THE PROPOSED EXPULSION OF MR. BRIGHT, 
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

JAN. 31, 1862. 

The Senate having under consideration tlie fol- 
lowing resolution, submitted by Mr. Wilkinson on 
the 16th of December, 1861, and which h^d been 
reported upon adversely by the Committee on the 
Judiciary : 

" JVJiereas, Hon. Jesse D. Bright, heretofore, on 
the 1st day of March, 1861, wrote a letter, of 
which the following is a copy : 

" ' My dear Sir : Allow me to introduce to your ac- 
quaintance my friend, Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas. 
He visits your capital mainly to dispose of what ho 
regards a great improvement in firearms. I recom- 
mend him to your favorable consideration as a gentle- 
man of the first respectability, and reliable in every 
respect. 

" ' Ver}^ truly yours, Jesse D. Bright. 

" 'To His Excellency Jefferson Davis, 

*' ' President of the Confederation cf States.' 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 137 

"And ichereas we believe the said letter is evi- 
dence of disloyalty to the United States, and is 
calculated to give aid and comfort to the public 
enemies ; therefore, 

" Be it resolved, That the said Jesse D. Bright 
is expelled from his seat in the Senate of the 
United States." 

Mr. Johnson said : 

"Mr. President, when this resolution for the ex- 
pulsion of the senator from Indiana was first pre- 
sented to the consideration of the Senate, it was 
not my intention to say a single word upon it. Pre- 
suming that action would be had upon it at a very 
early day, I intended to content myself -jvith casting 
a silent vote. But the question has assumed such a 
shape that, occupying the position I do, I cannot con- 
sent to record my vote without giving some of the 
reasons that influence my action. 

" I am no enemy of the senator from Indiana. I 
have no personally unkind feelings towards him. I 
never had any, and have none now. So far as my 
action on this case is concerned, it will be controlled 
absolutely and exclusively by public considerations, 
and with no reference to partisan or personal feeling. 
I knovz that since the discussion commenced, .an inti- 
mation has been thrown out, which I was pained to 
hear, that there was a disposition on the part of some 
to hound down the senator from Indiana. Sir, I know 
that I have no disposition to 'hound' any man. I 
would to God that I could think it otherwise than 
necessary for me to say a single word upon this ques- 
tion, or even to cast a vote upon it. So far as I know, 



138 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

there has never been any Unkind feeling between the 
senator and myself from the time we made our advent 
into public life down to this moment. Although party 
and party associations and party considerations influ- 
ence all of us more or less — and I do not pretend to 
be free from the influence of party more than others — 
I know, if I know myself, that no such considerations 
influence me now. Not many years ago there was a 
contest before the Senate as to his admission as a 
senator from the State of Indiana ; we all remember 
the struggle that took place. I will not say that the 
other side of the House were influenced by party con- 
siderations when the vote upon that question of ad- 
mission took place ; but if my memory serves me cor- 
rectly, there was upon one side of the chamber a 
nearly strict party vote that he was not entitled to 
his seat, while on the other side his right was sus- 
tained entirely by a party vote. I was one of those 
who voted for the senator's admission to a seat upon 
this floor under the circumstances, I voted to let him 
into the Senate, and I am constrained to say that, be- 
fore his term has expired, I am compelled to vote to 
expel him from it. In saying this, I repeat that if I 
know myself, and I think I do as well as ordinary men 
know themselves, I cast this vote upon public consider- 
ations entirely, and not from party or personal feeling. 
" Mr. President, I hold that under the Constitution 
of the United States we clearly have the power to ex- 
pel a member, and that, too, without our assuming 
the character of a judicial body. It is not necessary to 
have articles of impeachment preferred by the other 
House ; it is not necessary to organize ourselves into 
a court for the purpose of trial; but the principle is 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 1.39 

broad and clear, inherent in the very org-anization of 
the body itself, that we have the power and the right 
to expel any member from the Senate whenever we 
deem that thejniblic interests are unsafe in his hands, 
and that he is unfit to be a member of the body. -' We 
all know, and the country understands, that provision 
of the Constitution which confers this power upon the 
Senate. Judg-e Story, in commenting upon the case 
of John Smith, in connection with the provision of the 
Constitution to which I have referred, used the follow- 
ing language : 

" ' The precise ground of the failure of the motion 
does not appear ; but it may be gathered, from the 
arguments of his counsel, that it did not turn upon any 
doubt that the power of the Senate extended to cases 
of misdemeanor not done in the presence or view of 
the body ; but most jDrobably it was decided upon 
some doubt as to the facts. It may be thought diffi- 
cult to draw a clear line of distinction between the 
right to inflict the punishment of expulsion and any 
other punishment upon a member, founded on the 
time, place, or nature of the offence. The power to 
expel a member is not, in the British House of Com- 
mons, confined to offences committed by the party as 
a member, or during the session of Parliament ; but 
it extends to all cases where the offence is such as, in 
the judgment of the House, unfits him for parlia- 
mentary duties.'* 

" The rule in the House of Commons was undoubt- 
edly in the view of the framers of our Constitution ; 
and the question is, has the member unfitted himself, 

* Story's Commentaries on the Constitutmi. 



140 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

has he disqiudified himself, in view of the extraordi- 
naiy condition of the country, from discharging the 
duties of a senator? Looking at his connection with 
the executive ; hooking at the condition, and probably 
the destinies of the country, we are to decide — with- 
out prejudice, without passion, without excitement — 
can the nation, and does the nation, have confidence 
in committing its destinies to the senator from In- 
diana, and others who are situated like him? 

" If we were disposed to bring to our aid, and were 
willing to rely upon the public judgment, what should 
we find ? When you pass through the country, the 
common inquiry is, ' Wh}' has not Senator Bright, and 
why have not others like him, been expelled from 
the Senate V I have had the question asked me 
again and again. I do not intend, though, to predi- 
cate my action as a senator upon what may be sim- , 
ply rumor and popular clamor or popular indignation ; 
but still it is not often the case that when there is a 
public judgment formed in reference to any great 
question before the country, that public judgment is 
not well founded, though it is true there are some- 
times exceptions. 

" Having shown our power in the premises to be 
clear, according to the general authority granted by 
the Constitution, and the broad principle stated by 
Judge Story in its elucidation, I next turn my atten- 
tion to the case itself. The senator from Indiana is 
charged with having written a letter, on the 1st of 
March last, to the chief of the rebellion, and this is 
the basis of this proceeding against him. What was 
the condition of the country at the time that letter 
was wi'itten ? Did war then exist, or not ? for really 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 141 

that is the great point in the case. On that point al- 
low me to read an extract from the charge of Judge 
David A. Smalley to the grand-jury of the United 
States District Court for the Southern District of New- 
York, published in the ' National Intelligencer' of Jan- 
uary 21, 1861 : 

" ' It is well known that war, civil war, exists in 
portions of the Union ; that persons owing allegiance 
to the United States have confederated together, and 
with arms, by force and intimidation, have prevented 
the execution of the constitutional acts of Congress, 
have forcibly'- seized upon and hold a custom-house 
and post-oflSce, forts, arsenals, vessels, and other prop- 
erty belonging to the United States, and have actually 
fired upon vessels bearing the United States flag and 
carrying United States troops. This is a usurpation 
of the authority of the Federal Government ; it is 
high treason by levying war. Either one of those 
acts will constitute high treason. There can be no 
doubt of it.' 

" The judge here defines high treason, and he goes 
on to say : 

" ' What amounts to adhering to and giving aid and 
comfort to our enemies, it is somewhat difficult in all 
cases to define ; but certain it is that furnishing them 
with arms,' — 

" It really seems that bj'' some kind of intuition 
the judge had in his mind the precise case now under 
our consideration, and had anticipated it last Jan- 
uary,— 

— " ' certain it is that fvn-nishing them with arms or 
munitions of war, vessels or other means of transpor- 
tation, or any materials which will aid the traitors in 



142 ANDEEW JOHNSON. 

carrying' out their traitoi'ous purposes, with a know- 
ledge that they are intended for such purposes, or in- 
citing and encouraging others to engage in or aid 
the traitors in any way, does come within the provis- 
ions of the act.' 

" In this view, even if we were sitting as a court, 
bound by the rules and technicalities of judicial pro- 
ceedings, should we not be bound to hold that this 
case comes within this legal definition ? 

" ' And it is immaterial,' adds Judge Smallej^ 
' whether such acts are induced by sympathy with 
the rebellion, hostility to the Government, or a design 
for gain.' 

" In view of these authorities let us look at the let- 
ter. It was written on the 1st of March, 1861. The 
opinion of Judge Smalley was published in the ' In- 
telligencer' of the 21st of January, 1861, and must, 
of course, have been delivered before that time. It 
would be doing the senator's intelligence great injus- 
tice to presume that he was not as well informed on 
the subject as the judge was who was charging the 
grand-jury in reference to an act of Congress passed 
at an early day in the history of the Government. It 
would be doing him great injustice to suppose that he 
was not familiar with the statute. It would be doing 
him great injustice to suppose that he had not ob- 
served the fact that the attention of the country was 
being called by the courts to the treason that was 
rampant throughout the land. The letter complained 
of is as follows : 

" ' Washington, March 1, 1861. 

" ' My peab Sir — Allow me to introduce to your ac- 
quaintance my friend Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 143 

He visits j'our capital mainly to dispose of what he 
regards a great improvement in firearms. I re- 
commend him to your favorable consideration as a 
gentleman of the first respectability, and reliable in 
every respect. 

" ' Very truly yours, 

" 'Jesse D. Bright. 
" ' To His Excellency Jefferson Davis, 

" ' President of the Confederation of States.' 

" According to the charge of Judge Smalley, which 
I have already read, the flag of the United States had 
been fired upon before the 21st of January, 1861, and 
war then did in fact exist. When the rebels were 
taking our forts ; when they were taking possession 
of our post-offices ; when they were seizing our cus- 
tom-houses ; when they were taking possession of 
our mints and the depositories of the public money, 
can it be possible that the senator from Indiana did 
not know that war existed, and that rebellion was 
going on ? It is a fact that the ordinance of the con- 
vention of Texas seceding from the Union, and attach- 
ing herself to the Southern Confederacy, was dated 
back as far as the 1st of February, 1861. Then, at 
the time the letter was written, Thomas B. Lincoln 
was a citizen of a rebel State ; a traitor and a rebel 
himself He comes to the senator asking him to do 
what ? To write a letter by which he could be facil- 
itated in his scheme of selling an improved firearm, 
an implement of war and of death. Can there be any 
mistake about it? He asks for a letter recommending 
an improved firearm to the president of the rebel 
States, wlio was then in actual war ; the man who 



144 ANDREW JOHNSOX. 

asked fur this being himself from a State that was in 
open rebellion, and he himself a traitor. 

" Now, sir, if we were a court, how would the case 
be presented ? I know the Constitution saj's that 
' no person shall be convicted of treason unless on 
the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, 
or on confession in open court.' Here is an overt 
act ; it is shown clearly and plainly. We have the 
Senator's confession in open Senate that he did write 
the letter. Shall we with this discretion, in view of 
the protection of this body and the safety of the Gov- 
ernment, decide the case upon special pleas or hunt 
up technicalities by which the senator can escape, as 
you would quash an indictment in a ci'iminal court ? 

" The case of John Smith has already been stated 
to the Senate. A true bill has been found against 
him for his connection with Burr's treason, but upon 
a technicality, the proof not being made out according 
to the Constitution, and Burr having been tried first 
and acquitted, the bill against Smith was quashed, 
as he was only an accomplice. He was, therefore, 
turned out of court ; the proceedings against him 
were quashed upon a technicality ; but John Smith 
was a senator, and he came here to this body. He 
came again to take his seat in the Senate of the United 
States, and what did the Senate do ? They took up 
his case ; they investigated it. Mr. Adams made a 
report, able, full, complete. I may say he came well- 
nigh exhausting the whole subject. The committee 
reported a resolution for his expulsion, and how did 
the vote stand ? It is true that Mr. Smith was not 
expelled, for the want of some little formality in this 
body, the vote standing 19 to 10. It only lacked one 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 145 

vote to put him out by a two-thirds majoi'ity, accord- 
ing to the requirements of the Constitution. What 
was the judgment of the nation ? It was that John 
Smith was an accomplice of Burr, and the Senate con- 
demned him and ahnost expelled him, not naiTowing 
itself down to those rules and technicalities that are 
resorted to in courts and by which criminals escape. 
To show the grounds upon which the action in that 
case was based, I beg leave to read some extracts 
from Mr. John Quincy Adams' report ; 

" ' In examining the question whether these forms 
of judicial proceedings or the rules of judicial evi- 
dence ought to be applied to the exercise, of that cen- 
sorial authority which the Senate of the United States 
possesses over the conduct of its members, let us 
assume as the test of their application either the dic- 
tates of unfettered reason, the letter and spirit of the 
Constitution, or precedents domestic or foreign, and 
your committee believe that the result will be the 
same : that the power of expelling a member must in 
its nature be discretionary, and in its exercise always 
more summary than the tardy process of judicial pro- 
ceedings. 

" ' The power of expelling a member for misconduct 
results, on the principles of common sense, from the 
interests of the nation that the high trust of legisla- 
tion should be invested in pure hands. When the 
trust is elective, it is not to be presumed that the con- 
stituent body will commit the deposit to the keeping 
of worthless characters. But when a man, whom his 
fellow-citizens have honored with their confidence on 
the pledge of a spotless reputation, has degraded him- 
self by the commission of infamous crimes, which 

7 



146 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

become suddenly and unexpectedly revealed to the 
world, defective, indeed, would be that institution 
which should be impotent to discard from its bosom 
the contagion of such a member ; which should have 
no remedy of amputation to apply imtil the poison had 
reached the heart.' " 

^ 3|( ;(: :|c ^ ^ 

" ' But when a member of a legislative body lies 
under the imputation of aggravated oifences, and the 
determination upon his case can operate only to 
remove him from a station of extensive powers and 
important trusts, this disproportion between the 
interest of the public and the interest of the individual 
disappears ; if any disproportion exists, it is of an 
opposite kind. It is not better that ten traitors should 
be members of this Senate, than that one innocent 
man should suifer expulsion. In either case, no 
doubt, the evil would be great ; but in the former, it 
would strike at the vitals of the nation ; in the latter 
it might, though deeply to be lamented, only be the 
calamity of an individual.'" 

****** 

" ' Yet in the midst of all this anxious providence 
of legislative virtue, it has not authorized the con- 
stituent body to recall in any case its representative. 
It has not subjected him to removal by impeachment ; 
and when the darling of the people's choice has become 
their deadliest foe, can it enter the imagination of a 
reasonable man, that the sanctuary of their legislation 
must remain polluted with his presence, until a court 
of common law, with its pace of snail, can ascertain 
whether his crime was committed on the right or on 
the left bank of a river ; whether a puncture of dif- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 147 

ference can be found between the words of the charge 
and the words of the proof ; whether the witnesses of 
his g'uilt should or should not be heard b}^ his jury ; 
and whether he was punishable, because present at 
an overt act, or intangible to public justice because 
he only contrived and prepared it ? Is it conceivable 
that a traitor to that country which has loaded him 
with favors, guilty to the common understanding of 
all mankind, should be suffered to return unquestioned 
to that post of honor and confidence where, in the 
zenith of his good fame, he had been placed by the 
esteem of his countrymen, and in defiance of their 
wishes, in mockery of their fears, surrounded by the 
public indignation, but inaccessible to its bolt, pursue 
the purposes of treason in the heart of the national 
councils? Must the assembled rulers of the land 
listen with calmness and indifference, session after 
session, to the voice of notorious infamy, until the 
sluggard step of municipal justice can overtake his 
enormities ? Must they tamely see the lives and for- 
tunes of millions, the safety of present and future 
ages, depending upon his vote, recorded with theirs, 
merely because the abused benignity of general 
maxims may have remitted to him the forfeiture of 
his life ? 

" ' Such, in very supposable cases, would be the 
unavoidable consequences of a principle which should 
offer the crutches of judicial tribunals as an apology 
fur crippling the congressional power of expulsion. 
Far different, in the opinion of your committee, is the 
spirit of our Constitution. They believed that the 
very purpose for which this power was given was to 
preserve the Legislature from the first approaches of 



lis ANDREW JOHNSON. 

infection ; that it was made discretionary, because it 
could not exist under tiie procrastination of general 
rules. That its process must be summar}'', because it 
■would be rendered nugatory by delay.' 

" Mr, President, suppose Aaron Burr had been a 
senator, and after his acquittal he had come back 
here to take his seat in the Senate, what would have 
been done? According to the doctrine avowed in this 
debate, that we must sit as a court and subject the 
individual to all the rules and technicalities of crim- 
inal proceedings, could he have been expelled ? And 
yet is there a senator here who would have voted to 
allow Aaron Burr to take a seat in the Senate after 
his acquittal by a court and jury ? No ; there is not 
a senator here who would have done it. Aaron Burr 
was tried in court, and he was found not guilty ; he 
was turned loose ; but was the public judgment of 
this nation less satisfied of his guilt than if he had 
not been acquitted ? What is the nation's judgment, 
settled and fixed ? That Aaron Burr was guilty of 
treason, notwithstanding he was acquitted by a court 
and jury. 

"It is said by some senators that the senator from 
Indiana wrote this letter simply as a letter of friend- 
ship. Sir, just think of it ! A senator of the United 
States was called upon to write a letter for a rebel, 
for a man from a rebel State, after the courts of the 
country had pronounced that civil war existed ; after 
the judicial tribunals had defined what aiding and ad- 
hering to the enemies of the country was I Under 
such circumstances, what would have been the course 
of loyalty and of patriotism ? Suppose a man who 
had been your friend, sir, who had rendered you many 



SERVICES AXD SrEECHES. 149 

acts of kindness, liad come to you fur such a letter. 
You would have asked wlicre lie was g'oing witli it. 
You would have said, 'There is a Southern Confed- 
erac}'; tliere is a rebellion; my friend, you cannot ask 
me to write a letter to anybody there ; they are at 
war with the United States; they are at war with my 
Government; I cannot write you a letter giving you 
aid and assistance in selling- your improved firearm 
there.' Why ? ' Because that firearm may be used 
against my own country and against my own fellow- 
citizens. Would not that have been the language of 
a man who was willing to recognize his obligations of 
duty to his country ? 

What was the object of writing the letter ? It cer- 
tainly was to aid, to facilitate the selling of his fire- 
arms, to inspire the rebel chief with confidence in the 
individual. It was saying substantially, ' I know this 
man ; I write to 3'ou because I know you have con- 
fidence in me; I send him to you because I know you 
need firearms ; you need improved firearms ; you 
need the most deadly and destructive weapons of 
warfare to overcome this great and this glorious 
country; I recommend him to you, and I recommend 
his firearms ; he is a man in whom entire confidence 
may be placed.' That, sir, is the letter. I have al- 
ready shown the circumstances under which it was 
written. If such a letter had been written in the 
purest innocence of intention, with no treasonable 
design, with no desire to injure his own Government, 
yet, in view of all the circumstances, in view of the 
facts which had transpired, a senator who would be 
so unthoughtful, and so negligent, and so regardless 
of his country's interests as to write such a letter, is 



\ 



150 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

not entitled to a seat on tliis floor.' [Applause in the 
galleries.] 

The presiding ojficer* — Order ! order ! 

Mr. Johnson : 

" Then, Mr. President, what has been the hearing 
and the conduct of the senator from Indiana since ? 
I desire it to be understood that I refer to him in no 
unkindness, for God knows I bear him none ; but my 
duty I will perform. 'Duties are mine, consequences 
are God's.' What has been the senator's bearing- 
generally? Have you heard of his being in the field ? 
Have you heard of his voice and his influence being 
raised for his bleeding and distracted country ? Has 
his influence been brought to bear oflScially, socially'', 
politically, or in any way, for the suppression of the 
rebellion ? If so, I am unaware of it. Where is the 
evidence of devotion to his country in his speeches 
and in his votes ? Where the evidence of the dispo- 
sition on his part to overthrow and put down the re- 
bellion ? I have been told, Mr. President, by honoi'- 
able gentlemen, as an evidence of the senator's devo- 
tion to his country and his great opposition to this 
Southern movement, that they heard him, and perhaps 
with tears in his eyes, remonstrate with the leaders 
of the I'ebellion that they should not leave him here in 
the Senate, or that they should not persist in their 
course after the relations that had existed between 
them and him, and the other Democrats of the coun- 
try; that he thought they were treating him badly. 
This was the kind of remonstrance he made. Be it 

* Mr. Sherman. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 151 

SO. I am willing to give the senator credit for all he 
is entitled to, and I would to God I could credit him 
with more. 

" But do senators remember that, when this battle 
was being fought in the Senate. I stood liere on this 
sida, solitary and alone, on the 19th day of December, 
1860, and proclaimed that the Government was at an 
end if you denied it the power to enforce its laws? I 
declared, then, that a government which had not the 
power to coerce obedience on the part of those who 
violated the law was no government at all, and had 
failed to carry out the objects of its creation, and was, 
ipso facto, dissolved. When I stood on this floor and 
fought the battle for the supremacy of the Constitution 
and the enforcement of the laws, has the Senate for- 
gotten that a bevy of conspirators gathered in from 
the other House, and that those who were here crowded 
around, with frowns and scowls, and expressions of 
indignation and contempt towards me, because I dared 
to raise my feeble voice in vindication of the Consti- 
tution and the enforcement of the laws of the Union ? 
Have you forgotten the taunts, the jeers, the derisive 
remarks, the contemptuous expressions that were in- 
dulged in ? If you have, I have not. If the senator 
felt such great reluctance at the departure from the 
Senate of the chiefs of the rebellion, I should have 
been glad to receive one encouraging smile from him 
when I was fighting the battles of the country. I did 
not receive one encouraging expression ; I received 
not a single sustaining look. It would have been pe- 
culiarly encouraging to me, under the circimistances, 
to be greeted and encouraged by one of the senator's 
talents and long standing in public life: but he was 



1 52 ANDREW" JOHNSON. 

culd as an iceberg, and 1 stood solitary and alone 
amidst the gang of conspirators that had gathered 
around me. So much for the senator's remonstrances 
and expressions of regret for the retirement of those 
gentlemen. 

" The beai'ing of the senator since he wjrote this 
letter has not been unobserved. I have not compared 
notes ; I have not hunted up the record in reference 
to it ; but I have a perfect recollection of it. Did we 
not see, during the last session of Congress, the line 
being drawn between those who were devoted to the 
Union and those who were not ? Cannot we sometimes 
see a great deal more than is expressed ? Does it 
require us to have a man's sentiments written down in 
burning and blazing characters, before we are able 
to judge Avhat they are ? Has it not been observable 
all through this history where the true Union heart 
has stood ? Vv^hat was the senator's bearing at the 
last session of Congress ? Do we not know that in 
the main he stood here opposed substantial!}^ to every 
measure which was necessary to sustain the Govern- 
ment in its trial and peril ? He may perhaps have 
voted for some measures that were collateral, remote, 
indirect in their bearing ; but do we not know that 
his vote and his influence were cast against the meas- 
ures which were absolutely necessary to sustain the 
Government in its hour of peril ? 

" Some gentlemen have said, and well said, thati? 
we should not judge by party. I say so, too. I 
voted to let the senator from Indiana into the body, 
and as a Democrat my bias and prejudice would 
rather be in his favor. I am a Democrat now ; I 
have been one all my life ; I expect to live and die 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 153 

one ; and the corner-stone of my Democracy rests 
upon the enduring basis of the Union. Democrats 
may come and go ; but they shall never divert me 
from the polar star by which I have ever been guided 
from early life — the great principle of Democracy 
upon which this Government rests, and which cannot 
be carried out without the preservation of the Union 
of these States. The pretence hitherto employed by 
many who are now in the traitors' camp has been, 
' We are for the Union ; we are not for dissolution ; 
but we are opposed to coercion.' llow long, senators, 
have you heard that siren song ? Where are now most 
of those who sang those siren tones to us ? Look 
back to the last session, and inquire where now are 
the men who then were singing that song in our ears ? 
Where is Trusten Polk, who then stood here so gently 
craving ftir peace ? He is in the i-ebel camp. Where 
is John C. Breckinridge ? — a man for whose promo- 
tion to the Presidency I did what I could, physically, 
mentally, and pecuniarily ; but when he satisfied me 
that he was for breaking up this Government, and 
would ere long be a traitor to his country, I dropped 
him as I would the senator from Indiana. He was 
here at the last session of Congress ; and everybody 
could see then that he was on the road to the traitors' 
camp. Instead of sustaining the Government, he, too, 
was crjnng out for peace ; but he was bitter against 
' Lincoln's government.' Sir, when 1 talk about pre- 
serving this great Government, I do not have its ex- 
ecutive officer in rny mind. The executive head of 
the Government comes in and goes out of office every 
four years. He is the mere creature of the people, 
I talk aboTit the Government without regard tp^^io 

7* 




154: ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

particular executive officers who have charge of it. 
If they do well, Ave can continue them ; if they do 
wrong, we can turn them out. Mr. Lincoln having 
come in according- to the forms of law and the Con- 
stitution, I, loving my Government and the Union, 
felt it to be my duty to stand by the Government, 
and to stand by the Administration in all those meas- 
ures that I believed to be necessary and proper for 
the preservation and perpetuation of the Union. 

"Mr. Polk has gone ; Mr. Breckinridge has gone ; 
my namesake, the late senator from Missouri, has 
gone. Did you not see the line of separation at the 
last session ? Although senators make speeches in 
which they give utterance to disclaimers, we can see 
their bearing. It is visible now ; and the obligations 
of truth and duty to my country require me to speak 
of it. I believe there are treasonable tendencies here 
now ; and how long it will be before they will lead to 
the traitors' camp, I shall not undertake to say. The 
great point with these gentlemen is, that they are op- 
posed to coercion and to the enforcement of the laws. 
Without regard to the general bearing of the senator 
from Indiana upon that point, let me quote the con- 
clusion of his letter of the 1th of September, 1861, to 
J. Fitch. I will read only the concluding portion of 
the letter, as it does him no injustice to omit the re- 
mainder : 

" ' And hence I have opposed, and so long as my 
present convictions last shall continue to oppose the 
entire coercive policy of the Government. I hope this 
may be satisfactory to my friends. For my enemies 
I care not.' 

" Does not this correspond with the senator's gen- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 155 

eral bearing ? Has he given his aid, or countenance, 
or influence in any manner towards the efforts of the 
Government to sustain itself? What has been his 
course ? We know that great stress has been laid 
upon the word ' coercion,' and it has been played 
upon effectually for the purpose of prejudicing the 
Southern mind, in connection with the other term, 
'subjugation of the States,' which has been used so 
often. We may as well be honest and fair, and admit 
the truth of the great proposition, that a government 
cannot exist — in other words, it is no government — 
if it is without the power to enforce its laws and co- 
erce obedience to them. That is all there is of it ; 
and the very instant you take that power from this 
Government, it is at an end ; it is a mere rope of sand 
that will fall to pieces of its own weight. It is idle, 
Utopian, j^imerical, to talk about a government ex- 
isting without the power to enforce its laws. How is 
the Government to enforce its laws ? The Constitu- 
tion says that Congress shall have power ' to provide 
for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.* 
Let me ask the senator from Indiana, with all his as- 
tuteness, how is rebellion to be put down, how is it 
to be resisted, unless there is some power in the Gov- 
ernment to enforce its laws ? 

" If there be a citizen who violates your post-office 
laws, who counterfeits the coin of the United States, 
or who commits any other offence against the laws 
of the United States, you subject him to trial 
and punishment. Is not that coercion? Is not 
that enforcing the laws? IIow is rebellion to be 
put down w^ithout coercion, without enforcing tho 



156 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

laws? Can it be doue? The Constitution pn> 
vides that — 

" ' The United States shall iiuarautec to everv State 
in this Union a republican ibrni of government, and 
shall protect each of them from invasion ; and on ap- 
plication of the Legislature, or of the Executive (wlien 
tlie Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic 
violence.' 

" How is this Government to put down domestic 
violence in a State without coercion ? How is the 
nation to be protected against insurrection without 
coercing the citizens to obedience ? Can it be done ? 
When the senator says he is against the entire co- 
ercive policy of the Government, he is against the 
vital principle of all government. I look upon this 
OS the most revolutionary and destructive doctrine 
that ever was preached. If this Government cannot 
call forth the militia, if it cannot repel invasion, if it 
cannot put down domestic violence, if it cannot sup- 
pi-ess rebellion, I ask if the great objects of the Govern- 
ment are not at an end ? 

"Look at my own State, by way of illustration. 
There is open rebellion there ; there is domestic vio- 
lence ; there is insurrection. An attempt has been 
made to transfer that State to another power. Let 
me ask the senator from Indiana if the Constitution 
does not require you to guarantee us a republican 
form of government in that State ? Is not that your 
sworn duty ? Wo ask you to put down this unholy 
ivbellion. What answer would he give us ? We ask 
you to protect us against insurrection and domestic 
violence. What is his reply? 'I am against your 
whole coercive policy : I am against the enforcement 



SPJRVICES AND SPEECH K.S, 157 

of the lawH.' I say that if that priuciple he acted on, 
your Government is at an end ; it fails utterly to carry 
out the object of its creation. Such a principle leads 
to the destruction of the Government, for it must in- 
evitaljjy result in anarchy and confusion. 'I am 
opposed to the entire coercive policy of the Govern- 
ment,' says the senator from Indiana. That cuckoo 
note has been reiterated to satiety ; it is understood ; 
men know the nature and character of their Govern- 
ment, and they also kuovr that to cry out against 
'coercion' and ' suhjugatioji' is mere ad caplandv.m, 
idle, and unmeaninj^ slang-whanginfj. 

" Sir, I may be a little sensitive on this subject 
upon the one hand, while I know I want to do ample 
justice upon the other. I took an oath to support the 
Constitution of the United States, There is rebellion 
in the land ; there is insurrection afjainst the author- 
ity of this Government. Is the senator from Indiana 
BO unobservant or so obtuse that he does not know 
now that there has been a deliberate design for years 
to change the nature and character and genius of this 
Government? Do we not know that these schemers 
have been deliberately at work, and that there is a 
party in the South, with some associates in the North, 
and even in the West, that have become tired of free 
government, in which they have lost confidence ? 
They raise an outcry against 'coercion,' that they 
may [paralyze the Government, cripple the exercise of 
the great powers with which it was invested, and 
finally change its form and suVjject us to a Southern 
despotism. Do we not know it lo be so? Why dis- 
guise this great ti-uth ? Do we not know that they 
have been anxious for a change of government for 



158 ANDREW JOHKSON. 

years ? Since this rebellion commenced it has mani- 
fested itself in man}' quarters. How long is it since 
the organ of the Government at Richmond, the Rich- 
mond Whig, declared that rather than live under the 
Government of the United States, they preferred to 
take the constitutional Queen of Great Britain as their 
protector ; that they would make an alliance with 
Great Britain for the purpose of preventing the en- 
forcement of the laws of the United States ? Do we 
not know this ? Why then play ' hide and go seek ?' 
Why say, ' Oh, yes, I am for the Union,' while every 
act, influence, conversation, vote, is against it ? 
What confidence can we have in one who takes such 
a course ? 

" The people of my State, down-trodden and op- 
pressed by the iron heel of Southern despotism, appeal 
to you for protection. They ask you to protect them 
against domestic violence. They want you to help 
them to put down this unholy and damnable rebellion. 
They call upon this Government for the execution of 
its constitutional duty to guarantee to them a repub- 
lican form of government, and to protect them against 
the tyranny and despotism which is stalking abroad. 
What is the cold reply ? ' I am against the entire 
coercive policy ; I am not for enforcing the laws.' 
Upon such a doctrine government crumbles to pieces, 
and anarchy and despotism reign throughout the land. 

" Indiana, God bless her, is as true to the Union 
as the needle is to the pole. She has sent out her 
' columns ;' she has sent her thousands into the field : 
for what ? To sustain the Constitution and to enforce 
the laws ; and as they march with strong arms and 
brave hearts to relieve a suflering people, who have 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 159 

committed no offence save devotion to this glorious 
Union ; as they march to the rescue of the Constitu- 
tion and to extend its benefits again to a people who 
love it dearly, and who have been ruthlessly torn from 
under its protecting aegis, what does their senator say 
to them ? ' I am against the entire policy of coercion.' 
Do you ever hear a senator v.'ho thus talks make any 
objection to the exercise of unconstitutional and 
tyrannical power by the so-cal-led Southern Confeder- 
acy, or say a word against its practice of coercion ? 
In all the speeches that have been delivered on that 
point, has one sentence against usurpation, against 
despotism, against the exercise of doubtful and un- , 
constitutional powers by that Confederacy, been 
uttered ? Oh, no ! Have you h&ard any objection to 
their practising not only coercion, but usurpation? 
Have they not usurped government ? Have they not 
oppressed, and are they not now tyrannizing over the 
people ? The people of my State are coerced, borne 
down, trodden beneath the iron heel of power. We 
appeal to you for protection. You stand by and see 
us coerced ; you stand by and see tyranny triumphing, 
and no sympathy, no kindness, no helping hand can 
be extended to us. Your Government is paralyzed ; 
your Government is powerless ; that which you have 
called a government is a dreanft, an idle thing. You 
thought you had a government, but you have none. 
My people are appealing to you for protection under 
the Constitution. They are arrested by hundreds and 
by thousands ; they are dragged away from their 
homes and incarcerated in dungeons. They ask you 
for protection. Why do you not give it? Some of 
them are lying chained in their lonely prison-house 



160 ANDREW JOHXSON. 

The only response to their murmur is the rattling and 
clanking- of the chains that bind their limbs. The 
only response to their appeals is the grating ol the 
hinges of their dungeon. When we ask for help 
under the Constitution, we are told that the Govern- 
ment has no power to enforce the laws. Our people 
are oppressed and down-trodden, and you give them 
no remedy. They were taught to love and respect 
the Constitution of the United States. What is their 
condition to-day? They are hunted and pursued like 
the beasts of the forest by the secession and disunion 
hordes who are enforcing their doctrine of coercion. 
•They are shot or hung for no crime save a desire to 
stand by the Constitution of the United States. Help- 
less children and innocent females are murdered in 
cold blood. Our men are hung and their bodies left 
upon the gibbet. They are shot and left lying in the 
gorges of the mountains; not even thrown into the 
caves there to lie, but are left exposed to pass through 
all the loathsome stages of decomposition, or to be 
devoured by the birds of prey. We appeal for pro- 
tection, and are told by the senator from Indiana and 
others, ' We cannot enforce the laws ; we are against 
the entire coercive policy.' Do you not hear their 
groans? Do you not hear their cries? Do j'ou not 
hear the shrieks of oppressed and down-truddeu 
women and children? Sir, their tones ring out so 
loud and clear, that even listening angels look from 
heaven in pity. 

" I will not pursue this idea further, for I perceive 
that I am consuming more time than I intended to 
occupy. I think it is clear, without going further into 
the discussion, that the senator from Indiana has 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 161 

sympathized with the rebellion. The conclusion is 
fixed upon my mind that the senatoi- from Indiana has 
disqualified himself, has incapacitated himself to dis- 
charge the duties in this body of a loyal senator. I 
think it is clear that, even if we were a court, we 
should be bound to convict him ; but I do not narrow 
the case down to the close rules that would govern a 
court of justice. 

" But, sir, in the course of the discussion one pal • 
Hating fact was submitted by the distinguished senator 
from New Jersey,* and he knows that I do not refer 
to him in any spirit of unkindness. There was more 
of legal learning and special pleading in his sugges- 
tion than solidity or sound argument. He suggested 
that there was no proof that this letter had ever been 
delivered to Jefierson Davis, and that therefore the 
senator from Indiana ought not to be convicted. 
Well, sir, on the other hand, there is no proof that it 
was not delivered. It is true, the letter was found in 
Mr. Lincoln's possession ; but who knows that Davis 
did not read the letter, and hand it back to Lincoln ? 
It may have been that, being from his early friend, a 
man whom he respected, Lincoln desired to keep the 
letter and show it to somebody else. We have as 
much right to infer that the letter was delivered as 
that it was not ; but be that as it may, does it lessen 
the culpability of the senator from Indiana? He com- 
mitted the act, and so far as he was concerned it was 
executed. It would be no palliation of his offence if 
the man did not deliver the letter to Davis. The in- 
tent and the act were just as complete as if it had 
been delivered. 

* Mr. Ten Eyck, 



162 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

"During- the war of the Re%'olution, in 1780, Major 
Andre, a British spy, held a conference with Benedict 
Arnold. Arnold prepared his letters, six in number, 
and they were handed over to Major Andre, who put 
them between the soles of his feet and his stockings, 
and he started on his way to join Sir Henry Clinton. 
Before he reached his destination, however, John 
Paulding and his two associates arrested Major 
Andre. They pulled off his boots and his stockings, 
and they got the papers ; they kept them, and Major 
Andre was tried and hung as a spy. Arnold's papers 
were not delivered to Sir Henry Clinton ; but is there 
anybody here who doubts that Arnold was a traitor ? 
Has public opinion ever changed upon that subject ? 
He was not convicted in a court, nor were the treason- 
able dispatches which were to expose the condition 
of West Point, and make the British attack upon it 
easy and successful, ever delivered to Sir Henry 
Clinton, and yet Andre was hung as a spy. Because 
Sir Henry Clinton did not receive the treasonable 
documents, was the guilt of Benedict Arnold any the 
less? I do not intend to argue this question in a 
legal way ; I simply mention this circumstance by 
way of illustration of the point which has been urged 
in the present case, and leave it for the public judg- 
ment to determine. 

" Sir, it has been said by the distinguished senator 
from Delaware* that the questions in controversy 
might all have been settled by compromise. He dealt 
rather extensively in the party aspect of the case, and 
seemingly desired to throw the onus of the present 

* Mr. Saulsbury. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 163 

condition of affairs entirety on one side. He told us 
that if so and so had been done, these questions could 
have been settled, and that now there would have 
been no war. He referred particularly to the resolu- 
tion offered during the last Congress by the senator 
from New Hampshire,* and upon the vote on that he 
based his argument. I do not mean to be egotistical ; 
but if he will give me his attention, I intend to take 
the staple out of that speech, and show how much of 
it is left on that point. 

" The speech of the senator from Delaware was a 
very fine one. I have not the power, as he has, to 
con over, and get by rote, and memorize handsomely 
rounded periods, and make a great displaj^ of rhet- 
oric. It is my misfortune that I am not so skilled, 
I have to seize on fugitive thoughts as they pass 
through my mind, make the best application of them 
I can, and. express them in my own crude way. I am 
not one of those who prepare rounding, sounding, 
bounding rhetorical flourishes, read them over twenty 
times before I come into the Senate Chamber, make a 
great display, and have it said, ' Oh, that is a fine 
speech !' I have heard many such fine speeches ; but 
Vv'hen 1 have had time to follow them up, I have found 
that it never took long to anal^-ze them, and reduce 
them to their original elements ; and that when they 
were reduced, there was not very much of them. 
[Laughter.] 

" The senator told us that the adoption of the Clark 
amendment to the Crittenden resolutions defeated the 
settlement of the questions of controversy ; and that, 

* Mr. Clark. 



164 ANDREW JOHNSON, 

but for that vote, all could liavo been peace and pros- 
perity now. We were told that the Clark amendment 
defeated the Crittenden Compromise, and prevented a 
settlement of the controversy. On this point I will 
read a portion of the speech of my worthy and tal- 
ented friend from California,* and when I speak of 
him thus, I do it in no unmeaning' sense. I intend 
that he, not I, shall answer the senator from Dela- 
ware. I know that sometimes, when gentlemen are 
fixing up their pretty rhetorical flourishes,' they do 
not take time to see all the sharp corners they may 
encounter. If they can make a readable sentence, 
and float on in a smooth, easy stream, all goes well, 
and they are satisfied. As I have said, the senator 
from Delaware told us that the Clark amendment was 
the turning-point in the whole matter ; that from it 
had flowed rebellion, revolution, war, the shooting and 
imprisonment of people in different States — perhaps 
he meant to include my own. This was the Pandora's 
box that has been opened, out of which all the evils 
that now afflict the land have flown. Thank God, I 
still have hope that all will yet be saved. My worthy 
friend from California, during- the last session of C(jn- 
gress, made one of the best speeches he ever made. 
I bought five thousand copies of it for distribution, 
but I had no constituents to send them to [laughter] ; 
and they have been lying in your document-room ever 
since, with the exception of a few, which I thought 
would do good in some quarters. In the course of 
that speech upon this very point, he made use of these 
remarks : 

* Mr. Latham. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 165 

" ' Mr. President, hoing last wintei'- a careful eye- 
witness of all that occurred, I soon became satisfied 
that it was a deliberate, wilful design, on the part of 
some representatives of Southern States, to seize upon 
the election of Mr. Lincoln merely as an excuse to 
precipitate this revolution upon the country. One 
evidence, to my mind, is the fact that South Carolina 
never sent her senators here.' 

" Then they certainly were not influenced by the 
Clark amendment. 

" ' An additional evidence is, that when gentlemen 
on this floor, by their votes, could have controlled le- 
g'islation, they refused to cast them, for fear that the 
ver}^ propositions submitted to this body might have 
an influence in changing the opinions of their constit- 
uencies. Why, sir, when the resolutions submitted 
by the senator from New Hampshiie [Mr. Clark] were 
offered as an amendment to the Crittenden proposi- 
tions, for the manifest purpose of embarrassing the 
latter, and the vote taken on the 16th of January, 
1861, I ask, what did we see? There were fifty-five 
senators at that time upon this floor in person. The 
Globe of the second session. Thirty-sixth Congress, 
part 1, page 409, shows that upon the call of the 
yeas and nays immediately preceding the vote on 
the substituting of Mr. Clark's amendment, there 
were fifty-five votes cast. I will read the vote from 
the Globe : 

" ' Yeas. — Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cam- 
eron, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, 
Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Har- 
lan, King, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, 
Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson— 25.' 



166 ANDliEW JOHNSON. 



« ( 



Nays. — Messrs. Bayard, Benjamin, Bigler, Bragg, 
Bright, Clingman, Crittenden, Douglas, Fitch, Green, 
Gwin, Hemphill, Hunter, Iverson, Johnson of Ar- 
kansas, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, La- 
tham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Pugh, 
Rice, Saulsbur}'-, Sebastian, Slidell, and Wigfall — 30.' 

" ' The vote being taken immediately after, on the 
Clark proposition, was as follows :' 

" ' Yeas. — Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cam- 
eron, Chandler, Clark, CoUamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Dur- 
kee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, 
King, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, 
Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson — 25. 

" ' Nays.— Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, 
Clingman, Crittenden, Fitch, Green, Gwin, Hunter, 
Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, 
Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Pugh, Rice, Sauls- 
bury, and Sebastian — 23.' 

" ' Six senators retained their seats and refused to 
vote, thus themselves allowing the Clark proposition 
to supplant the Crittenden resolution by a vote of 
twenty-five to twenty-three. Mr. Benjamin, of Louisi- 
ana; Mr. Hemphill and Mr. Wigfall, of Texas; Mr. Iver- 
son, of Georgia ; Mr. Johnson, of Arkansas, and Mr. 
Slidell, of Louisiana, were in their seats, but refused 
to cast their votes.' 

" I sat right behind Mr. Benjamin, and I am not 
sure that my worthy friend was not close by, when he 
refused to vote, and I said to him, ' Mr. Benjamin, why 
do you not vote ? Why not save this proposition, and 
see if we cannot bring the country to it V He gave 
me rather an abrupt answer, and said he would con- 
trol his own action without consulting me or anybody 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 167 

else. Said I, ' Vote, and show yourself an honest man.' 
As soon as the vote was taken, he and others tele- 
graphed South, ' We cannot get any compromise.' 
Here were six Southern men refusing to vote, when 
the amendment would have been rejected by four ma- 
jority if they had voted. "Who, then, has brought 
these evils on the country ? Was it Mr. Clark ? He 
was acting out his own policy ; but with the help we 
had from the other side of the chamber, if all those on 
this side had been true to the Constitution and faithful 
to their constituents, and had acted with fidelity to 
the country, the amendment of the senator from New 
Hampshire could have been voted down, the defeat of 
which, the senator from Delaware says, would have 
saved the country. Whose fault was it? Who is 
responsible for it ? Who did it ? Southern traitors, 
as was said in the speech of the senator from Cali- 
fornia. They did it. They wanted no compromise. 
They accomplished their object by withholding their 
votes; and hence the country has been involved in the' 
present difiicult3^ Let me read another extract from 
this speech of the senator from California : 

" ' I recollect full well the joy that pervaded the 
faces of some of those gentlemen at the result, and 
the sorrow manifested by the venerable senator from 
Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden). The record shows that 
Mr. Pugh, from Ohio, despairing of an}' compromise 
between the extremes of ultra republicanism and dis- 
unionists, working manifestly for the same end, moved-, 
immediately after the vote was announced, to lay the 
whole subject on the table. If you will turn to page 
443, in the same volume, you will find, v.dien, at a late 
period, Mr. Cameron, from Pennsylvania, moved to re- 



16S \NDREW JOHNSON. 

consider the vote, appeals having been made to sus- 
tain those who were strugg-ling to preserve the peace 
of the country, that the vote ^vas reconsidered ; and 
when, at last, the Crittenden propositions were sub- 
mitted on the 2d day of March, these Southern States 
having nearly all seceded, they were then lost by but 
one vote. Here is the vote : 

" ' Yeas. — Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bright, Critten- 
den, Douglas, Grwin, Hunter, Johnson of Tennessee, 
Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Polk, 
Pugh, Rice, Sebastian, Thomson, and Wigfall — 19. 

"'Nays. — Messrs. Anthony, Bingham, Chandler, 
Clark, Dixon, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Fos- 
ter, Grimes, Harlan, King, Morrill, Sumner, Ten Ej'ck, 
Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson— 20.' 

" ' If these seceding Southern senators had remained, 
there would have passed, by a large vote (as it did 
without them), an amendment, by a two-thirds vote, 
forbidding Congress ever interfering with slavery in 
the States. The Crittenden proposition would have 
been indorsed by a majority vote, the subject finally 
going before the people, who have never yet, after 
consideration, refused justice, for any length of time, 
to any portion of the country. 

" ' I believe more, Mr. President, that these gentle- 
men were acting in pursuance of a settled and fixed 
plan to break up and destroy this Government.' 

"When w^e had it in our power to vote down the 
amendment of the senator from New Hampshire, and 
adopt the Crittenden resolutions, certain Southern 
senators prevented it; and yet, even at a late day of 
the session, after they had seceded, the Crittenden 
proposition was only lost by one vote. If rebellioh 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 169 

and bloodslied and ninrder lutve followed, to whose 
skirts does the responsibility attach ? I summed up 
all these facts myself in a speech during the last ses- 
sion ; but I have preferred to read from the speech 
of the senator from California, he being better author- 
ity, and having presented the facts better than I 
could. 

" What else was done at the very same session ? 
The House of Representatives passed, and sent to this 
body, a proposition to amend the Constitution of the 
United States, so as to prohibit Congress from ever 
hereafter interfering with the institution of slavery in 
the States, making that restriction a part of the or- 
ganic law of the land. That constitutional amendment 
came here after the senators from seven States had 
seceded ; and yet it was passed by a two-thirds vote 
in the Senate. Have you ever heard of any one of 
the States which had then seceded, or which has since 
seceded, taking up that amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, and saying they would ratify it, and make it a 
part of that instrument ? No. Does not the whole 
history of this rebellion tell you that it was revolution 
that the leaders wanted, that they started for, that 
they intended to have ? The facts to which I have 
referred show how the Crittenden proposition might 
have been carried; and when the senators from the 
Slave States were reduced to one-fourth of the mem- 
bers of this body, the two Houses passed a proposition 
to amend the Constitution, so as to guarantee to the 
States perfect security in regard to the institution of 
slavery in all future time, and prohibiting Congress 
from legislating on the subject. 

"Biit what more was done ? After Southern sena- 



170 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

tors had treacherously abandoned the Constitution and 
deserted their posts here, Congress passed bills j"or 
the organization of three new territories — Dakotah, Ne- 
vada, and Colorado ; and in the sixth section of each 
of those bills, after conferring, affirmatively, power on 
the Territorial Legislature, it went on to exclude cer- 
tain powers by using a negative form of expi'ession ; 
and it provided, among other things, that the Legis- 
lature should have no power to legislate so as to im- 
pair the right to private property; that it should lay 
no tax discriminating against one description of prop- 
erty in favor of another ; leaving the power on all 
these questions, not in the Territorial Legislature, but 
in the people when they should come to form a State 
constitution. 

" Now, I ask, taking the amendment to the Consti- 
tution, and taking the three territorial bills, embra- 
cing every square inch of territory in the possession of 
the United States, how much of the slavery question 
was left? What better compromise could have been 
made ? Still, we are told that matters might have 
been compromised ; and that if we had agreed to 
compromise, bloody rebellion would not now be 
abroad in the land. Sir, Southern senators are re- 
sponsible for it. They stood here with power to ac- 
complish the result, and yet treacherously, and, I may 
say, tauntingly, they left this chamber, and announced 
that they had dissolved their connection with the 
Government. Then, when we were left in the hands 
of those whom we had been taught to believe would 
encroach upon our rights, they gave us, in the consti- 
tutional amendment and in the three territorial bills, 
all that had ever been asked ; and yet gentlemen talk 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 171 

about compromise ! Why was not this taken and 
accepted ? 

" No ; it was not compromise that the leaders 
wanted ; they wanted power ; they wanted to destroy 
this Government, so that they might have place and 
emolument for themselves. They had lost confidence 
in the intelligence, and virtue, and integrity of the 
people, and their capacity to govern themselves ; and 
they intended to separate and form a government, the 
chief corner-stone of which should be slavery, dis- 
franchising the great mass of the people, of which we 
have seen constant evidence, and merging the powers 
of government in the hands of the few. I know what 
I say. I know their feelings and their sentiments. 
I served in the Senate here Avith them. I know they 
were a close corporation, that had no more confidence 
in or respect for the people than has the Bey of Al- 
giers. I fought that close corporation here. I knew 
that they were n* friends of the people. I knew that 
Slidell, and Mason, and Benjamin, and Iverson, and 
Toombs were the enemies of free government, and I 
know so now. I commenced the war upon them be- 
fore a State seceded ; and I intend to keep on fight- 
ing this great battle before the country for the per- 
petuity of free government. They seek to overthrow 
it, and to establish a despotism in its place. That is 
the great battle which is upon our hands. The great 
interests of civil liberty and free government call 
upon every patriot and every lover of popular rights 
to come forward and discharge his duty. 

" We see this great straggle ; we see that the ex- 
ercise of the vital principle of government itself is 
denied by those who desire our instituticms to be 



172 ANDREW JOHNSON- 

overtnrown and despotism establishea on tneir ruins 
If we have liot the physical and moral courage to ex- 
clude from our midst men whom we believe to be un- 
safe depositories of public power and public trust, — 
men whose associates were rolling off honeyed ac- 
cents against coercion, and are now in the traitors' 
camp, — if we have not the courage to force these men 
from our midst, because we have known them, and 
have been personal friends with them for years, we 
are not entitled to sit here as senators ourselves. 
Can you expect your brave men, your officers and 
soldiers who are now in ' the tented field,' subject to 
all the hardships and privations pertaining to a civil 
war like this, to have courage, and to march on with 
patriotism to crush treason on every battle-field, when 
you have not the courage to expel it from your midst ? 
Set those brave men an example ; say to them by 
your acts and voice that you evidence your intention 
to put down traitors in the field by ejecting them 
from your midst, without regard to former associ- 
ations. 

" I do not say these things in unkindness. I say 
them in obedience to duty, a high constitutional duty 
that I owe to my country ; yes, sir, that I owe to my 
wife and children. By your failure to exercise the 
powers of this Government, by your failure to enforce 
the laws of the Union, I am separated from those 
most dear to me. Pardon me, sir, for this personal 
allusion. My wife and children have been turned into 
the street, and my house has been turned into a bar- 
rack ; and for what ? Because I stand by the Con- 
stitution and the institutions of the country that I 
have been tauglit to love, respect, and venerate. Tliis 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 173 

is my uflfence. Where arc rny sons-in-hiw ? One to- 
day is l^'ing in prison ; another is forced to fly to the 
mountains to evade the pursuit of tiie hell-born and 
hell-bound conspiracy of disunion and secession ; and 
when their cries come up here to 3'^ou for protection, 
we are told, ' No ; I am against the entire coercive 
policy of the Government.' 

" The speech of the senator from California, the 
other day, had the effect in some degree, and seemed 
to be intended to give the question a party tinge. If 
I know myself, — although, as I avowed before, I am 
a Democrat, and expect to live and die one, — I know 
no party in this great struggle for the existence of 
my country. The argument presented by the senator 
from California was that we need not be in such hot 
pursuit of Mr. Bright, or those senators who entertain 
his sentiments, who are still here, because we had 
been a little dilatory in expelling other traitorous sen- 
ators heretofore ; and he referred us to the resolution 
of the senator from Maine,* which was introduced at 
the special session in March last, declaring that cer- 
tain senators having withdrawn, and their seats having 
thereby become vacant, the secretary should omit their 
names from the roll of the Senate. I know there seemed 
to be a kind of timidity, a kind of fear, to make use of 
the word 'expel' at that time ; but the fact that we 
declared the seats vacant, and stopped there, did not 
preclude us from afterwards passing a vote of censure. 
The resolution, which was adopted in March, merely 
stated the fact that senators had withdrawn, ahcl left 
their seats vacant. At the next session a resolution 

* Mr. Feesenden. 



171 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

was introduced to expel the other senators from the 
seceded States who did not attend in the Senate; and 
my friend* moved to strike out of that very resolution 
the word 'expelled,' and insert 'vacated;' so that I do 
not think he ought to be much offended at it. I simply 
allude to it to show how easy it is for us to forget the 
surrounding circumstances that influenced our action 
at the time it took place. We know that a year ago 
there was a deep and abiding hope that the rebellion 
would not progress as it has done; that it would cease; 
and that there might be circumstances which, at one 
time, would to some extent justify us in allowing a 
wide margin which, at another period of time, would 
be wholly unjustifiable. 

"All this, however, amounts to nothing. We have 
a case now before us that requires our action, and we 
should act upon it conscientiously in view of the facts 
which are presented. Because we neglected to expel 
traitors before, and omitted to have them arrested, and 
permitted them to go away freely, and afterwards de- 
clared their seats vacant because they had gone, we 
are not now prevented from expelling a senator who 
is not worthy to be in the Senate. I do not say that 
other traitors may not be punished yet. I trust in 
God the time will come, and that before long, when 
these traitors can be overtaken, and we may mete out 
to them condign punishment, such as their offence de- 
serves. I know who was for arresting them. I know 
wlio declared their conduct to be treason. Here in 
their midst I told them it was treason, and they might 
make the best of it they could. 

* Mr. Latham. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 175 

** Sir, to sum up the argument, I think there is but 
little in the point presented by the senator from New- 
Jersey, of there being no proof of the reception of the 
letter ; and 1 think I have extracted the staple com- 
niudity entirely out of the speech of the senator from 
Delaware; and so far as the force of the argument, 
based up^n the Senate having at one session expelled 
certain members, while at the previous session it only 
vacated their seats, is concerned, I think the senator 
fi'om California answers that himself. As to the pol- 
ished and ingenious statement of the case made by the 
senator from New York,* I think I have answered 
that by putting the case upon a different basis from 
the one presented by him, which seems to control his 
action. 

" Mr. President, I have alluded to the talk about 
compromise. If I know myself, there is no one who 
desires the preservation of this Government more than 
I do ; and I think I have given as much evidence as 
mortal man could give of my devotion to the Union. 
My property has been sacrificed; my wife and children 
have been turned out of doors; my sons have been 
imprisoned ; my son-in-law has had to run to the 
mountains; I have sacrificed a large amount of bonds 
in trying to give some evidence of my devotion to the 
Government under which I was raised. I have at- 
tempted to show you that, on the part of the leaders 
of this rebellion, there was no desire to compromise: 
compromise was not what they wanted; and now the 
great issue before the country is the perpetuation or 
the destruction of free government. I have shown 

* Mr. Harris. 



176 ANDREW JOliXSUX. 

how the resolution of the venerable senator fr(;m Ken- 
tucky* was defeated, and that Southern men are re- 
sponsible for that defeat — six sitting in their places 
and refusing to vote. His proposition was only lost 
by two votes; and in the end, when the seceders had 
gone, by only one. Well do I remember, as was de- 
scribed by the senator from California, the sadness, 
the gloom, the anguish that played over his venerable 
face when the result was announced ; and I went 
across the chamber, and told him that here were men 
refusing to vote, and that to me was administered a ' 
rebuke by one of them for speaking to him on the 
subject. 

" Now, the senator from Delaware tells us that if 
that compromise had been made, all these conse- 
quences would have been avoided. It is a mere pre- 
tence; it is false. Their object was to overturn the 
Government. If they could not get the control of this 
Government, they were willing to divide the country 
and govern a part of it. Talk not of compromise now. 
What, sir, compromise with traitors with arms in their 
hands! Talk about 'our Southern brethren' when 
they present their swords at your throats and their 
bayonets at your bosoms! Is this a time to talk about . 
compromise ? Let me say, and I regret that I have 
to say it, that there is but one way to compromise this 
matter, and that is to crush the leaders of this rebel- 
lion and put down treason. You have got to subdue' 
them; you have got to conquer them ; and nothing 
but the sacrifice of life and blood will do it. The is- 
sue is made. The leaders of rebellion have decreed 

* Mr. Crittenden. 



SERVICES ANU SPEECHES. 177 

eternal separation between you and tliem. Those 
leaders must be conquered, and a new set of men 
brought forward who are to vitalize and develop the 
Union feeling- in the South. You must show your 
courage here as senators, and impart it to those who 
are in the field. If you were now to compromise, they 
would believe that they could whip you one to five, 
and you could not live in peace six months, or even 
three months. Settle the question now; settle it well; 
settle it finally; crush out the rebellion and punish the 
traitors. I want to see peace, and I believe that is 
the shortest way to get it. Blood must be shed, life 
must be sacrificed, and you may as well begin at first 
as last. I only regret that the Government has been 
so tardy in its operations. I wish the issue had been 
met sooner. I believe that if we had seen as much in 
the beginning as we see to-day, this rebellion would 
have been wound up and peace restored to the land by 
this time. 

" But let us go on ; let us encourage the army and 
the navy; let us vote the men and the means neces- 
sary to vitalize and to bring into requisition the en- 
forcing and coercive power of the Government; let us 
crush out the rebellion, and anxiously look forward to 
the day — God grant it may come soon — when that 
baleful comet of fire and of blood that now hovers over 
this distracted people may be chased away by the 
benignant star of peace. Let us look forward to the 
time when we can take the flag, the glorious flag of 
our country, and nail it below the cross, and there let 
it wave as it waved in the olden time, and let us 
gather around it, and inscribe as our motto, ' Liberty 
and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.' 

8* 



178 * ANDKEW JOHNSOX. 

Let us gather around it, and while it hangs floating 
beneath the cross, let us exclaim, ' Christ first, our 
country next.' Oh, how gladly rejoiced I should be 
to see the dove returning to the ark with the olive-leaf, 
indicating that land was found, and that the mighty 
waters had abated. I trust the time will soon come 
when we can do as they did in the olden times, when 
the stars sang together in the morning, and all creation 
proclaimed the glory of God. Then let us do our duty 
in the Senate and in the councils of the nation, and 
thereby stimulate our brave officers and soldiers to do 
theirs in the field. 

" Mr. President, I have occupied the attention of the 
Senate much longer than I intended. In view of the 
whole case, without personal unkind feeling towards 
the senator from Indiana, I am of opinion that duty to 
myself, duty to my family, duty to the Constitution, 
duty to the country, obedience to the public judgment, 
all lequire me to cast my vote to expel Mr. Bright from 
the Senate, and when the occasion arrives I shall so 
record my vote." 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES, 179 



CHAPTEK VL 

APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE, 

*' Fellow-Citizens : — Tennessee assumed the form of 
a body politic, as one of the United States of America, 
in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-six, at once 
entitled to all the privileges of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, and bound by all its obligations. For nearly 
sixty-five years she continued in the enjoyment of all 
her rights, and in tiie performance of all her duties, 
one of the most loyal and devoted of the sisterhood 
of States, She had been honored by the elevation of 
two of her citizens to the highest place in the gift of 
the American people, and a third had been nominated 
for the same high ofiice, who received a liberal though 
incfiective support. Her population had rapidly and 
largely increased, and their moral and material in- 
terests correspondingly advanced. Never was a 
people more prosperous, contented, and happy than 
the people of Tennessee under the Government of 
the United States, and none less burdened for the 
support of the authority by which they were pro- 
tected. They felt their Government only in the con- 
scious enjoyment of the benefits it conferred and the 
blessings it bestowed. 

" Such was our enviable condition until within tho 



180 ANDREW JOHXSOJSr. 

year just past, when, under what baneful icfluences 
it is not my purpose now to inquire, the authority of 
the Government was set at defiance, and the Con- 
stitution and laws contemned, by a rebellious, armed 
force. Men who, in addition to the ordinary privi- 
leges and duties of the citizen, had enjoyed largely 
the bounty and ofiicial patronage of the Government, 
and had, by repeated oaths, obligated themselves to 
its support, with sudden ingratitude for the bounty 
and disregard of their solemn obligation, engaged, 
deliberately and ostentatiously, in the accomplish- 
ment of its overthrow. Many, accustomed to defer 
to their opinions and to accept their guidance, and 
others, carried away by excitement or overawed by 
seditious clamor, arrayed themselves under their ban- 
ners, thus organizing a treasonable power, which, for 
the time being, stifled and suppressed the authority of 
the Federal Government. 

" In this condition of affairs it devolved upon the 
President, bound by his oflScial oath to preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution, and charged by 
the law with the duty of suppressing insuri-ection 
and domestic violence, to resist and repel this rebel- 
lious force by the military arm of the Government, 
and thus to re-establish the Federal authority. Con- 
gress, assembling- at an early day, found him en- 
gaged in the active discharge of this momentous 
and responsible trust. That body came promptly 
to his aid, and while supplying him with treasure 
and arms to an extent that would previously have 
been considered fabulous, they, at the same time, 
Avith almost absolute unanimity, declared ' that this 
-war is not waged on their part in any spirit of op- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 181 

j)ression, nor for anj' purpose of conquest or sub- 
jugation, nor purpose of overthrowing- or interfering 
■with the rights or the established institutions of these 
States ; but to defend and maintain the supremacy 
of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with 
all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several 
States unimpaired ; and that as soon as these ob- 
jects are accomplished, the war ought to cease.' In 
this spirit, and by such co-operation, has the Pres- 
ident conducted this mighty contest, until, as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army, he has caused the 
national flag again to float undisputed over the capi- 
tol of our State. Meanwhile the State government 
has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated ; the 
Legislature has dissolved ; the Judiciary is in abey- 
ance. The great ship of state, freighted with its 
precious cargo of human interests and human hopes, 
its sails all set, and its glorious old flag unfurled, has 
been suddenly abandoned by its officers and mutinous 
crew, and left to float at the mercy of the winds, and 
to be plundered by every rover upon the deep. In- 
deed the work of plunder has already commenced. 
The archives have been desecrated ; the public prop- 
erty stolen and destroyed ; the vaults of the State 
Bank violated, and its treasures robbed, including the 
funds carefully gathered and consecrated for all time 
to the insti'uction of our children. 

" In such a lamentable crisis the Government of 
the United States could not be unmindful of its 
high constitutional obligation to guarantee to every 
State in this Union a republican form of govern- 
ment, an obligation which every State has a direct 
and immediate interest in having- observed towards 



182 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

every other State ; and from which, by no action on 
the part of the people in anj^ State, can the Federal 
Government be absolved. A republican form of 
government, in consonance with the Constitution of 
the United States, is one of the fundamental con- 
ditions of our political existence, by which every 
part of the country is alike bound, and from which 
no part can escape. This obligation the national 
Government is now attempting to discharge. I have 
been appointed, in the absence of the regular and 
established State authorities, as Militar^^ Governor 
foi the time being, to preserve the public property 
of the State, to give the protection of law actively en- 
forced to her citizens, and, as speedily as may be, to 
restore her government to the same condition as be- 
fore the existing rebellion. 

" In this grateful but arduous undertaking, I shall 
avail myself of all the aid that may be afforded by 
my fellow-citizens. And for this purpose I respect- 
fully but earnestly invite all the people of Tennessee, 
desirous or willing to see a restoration of her ancient 
government, without distinction of party afiBliations 
or past political opinions or action, to unite with me, 
by counsel and co-operative agency, to accomplish 
this great end. I find most, if not all of the offices, 
both State and Federal, vacated, either by actual 
abandonment, or by the action of the incumbents in 
attempting to subordinate their functions to a power 
in hostility to the fundamental law of the State, and 
subversive of her national allegiance. These offices 
must be filled temporarily, until the State shall be re- 
stored so far to its accustomed quiet, that the people 
can peaceably assemble at the ballot-box and select 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 183 

agents of their own choice. Otherwise anarchy would 
prevail, and no raau'a life or property would be safe 
from the desperate and unprincipled. 

'•' I shall therefore, as early as practicable, designate 
for various positions under the State and county gov- 
ernments, from among my fellow-citizens, persons of 
probity and intelligence, and bearing trife allegiance 
to the Constitution and Government of the United 
States, who will execute the functions of their re- 
spective offices until their places can be filled by the 
action of the people. Their authority, when their ap- 
pointment shall have been made, will be accordingly 
respected and observed. 

"To the people themselves the protection of the 
Government is extended. All their rights will be 
duly respected, and their wrongs redressed when 
made known. Those who through the dark and 
weary night of the rebellion have maintained their 
allegiance to the Federal Government will be hon- 
ored. The erring and misguided will be welcomed 
on their return. And while it may become necessary, 
in vindicating the violated majesty of the law, and in 
reasserting its imperial sway, to punish intelligent 
and conscious treason in high places, no merely re- 
taliatory or vindictive policy will be adopted. To 
those especially who, in a private, unoJ0Scial capacity, 
have assumed an attitude of hostility to the Govern- 
ment, a full and complete amnesty for all past acts 
and declarations is oflered, upon the one condition of 
their again yielding themselves peaceful citizens to 
the just supremacy of the laws. This I advise them 
to do for their own good, and for the peace and wel- 
fare of our beloved State, endeared to me by the asso- 



184 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

ciations of long and active years, and by the enjoy- 
ment of her highest honors. 

"And appealing to my fellow-citizens of Tennessee, 
I point you to my long public life as a pledge for the 
sincerity of my motives, and an earnest for the per- 
formance of my present and future duties." 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 185 



CHAPTER VII. 

NOMINATED FOR THE VICE-PKESIDENCY. 

After sustaining, by voice and vote in the Sen- 
ate, every measure calculated to secure a Federal 
triumph over the Southern Confederacy, Presi- 
dent Lincohi appointed Andrew Johnson Military 
Governor of Tennessee, in the early spring of 
1862. This appointment, with the rank of brig- 
adier-general, was confirmed by the Senate on 
the 5th of March, and he immediately left Wash- 
ington for Nashville, and entered upon his new 
and responsible j)osition. No appointment could 
be more appropriate, and the country soon felt 
that the right man was indeed in the right place. 
Every proclamation, every address, every act 
received general and hearty approbation, and in 
the desperate siege sustained by NashviUe against 
a strong Confederate force in the autumn of the 
same year, the governor was first and foremost 
in aiding and encouraging the defenders of the 
city. " I am not a soldier,, he said, " but I will 
shoot any one who talks of surrender." His con- 
duct as Governor of Tennessee, added to his 
former course in the Senate, so increased hi:i 



186 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

popularity among the Northern masses, that on 
the 6th of June, 1864, he was unanimously nom- 
inated by the Union Convention, assembled at 
Baltimore, as the candidate for the Vice-Presi- 
dency of the United States. On accepting the 
nomination he addressed to the committee the 
following clear and comprehensive communica- 
tion : 

" Nashville, Tenn., July 2, 1864. 

" Hon. William Dennison, Chairman, and others, Com- 
mittee of the National Unioyi Convention : 

" Gentlemen : Your communication of the 9th ult., 
iiiforming" me of my nomination for the Vice-Presi- 
dency of the United States by the National Conven- 
tion held at Baltimore, and inclosing a copy of the 
resolutions adopted by that body, was not received 
until the 25th ult 

"A reply on my part had been previously made to 
the action of the convention in presenting my name, 
in a speech delivered in this city on the evening suc- 
ceeding the day of the adjournment of the convention, 
in which I indicated my acceptance of the distin- 
guished honor conferred by that body, and defined the 
grounds upon which that acceptance was based, sub- 
stantially saying what I now have to say. From the 
comments made upon that speech by the various 
presses of the country to which my attention has been 
directed, I considered it to be regarded as a full 
acceptance. 

" In view, however, of the desire expressed in your 
communication, I will more fully allude to a few points 
that have been heretofore presented. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 187 

" My opinions on the leading- questions at present 
ag'itating and distracting the public mind, and espe- 
cially in reference to the rebellion now being- waged 
against the Government and authority of the United 
States, I presume are generally understood. Before 
the Southern people assumed a belligerent attitude 
(and repeatedly since), I took occasion most frankly 
to declare the views I then entertained in relation to 
the wicked purposes of the Southern politicians. 
They have since undergone but little, if any, change. 
Time and subsequent events have rather confirmed 
than diminished my confidence in their correctness. 

"At the beginning of this great struggle I enter- 
tained the same opinion of it I do now, and in jny 
place in the Senate I denounced it as treason, worthy 
the punishment of death, and warned tlie Government 
and people of the impending danger. But my voice 
was not heard or counsel heeded until it was too late 
to avert the storm. It still continued to gather over 
us without molestation from the authorities at Wash- 
ington, until at length it broke with all its fury upon 
the country. And now, if we would save the Govern- 
ment from being overwhelmed by it, we must meet it 
in the true spirit of patriotism, and bring traitors to 
the punishment due their crime, and, hxj force of arms, 
crush out and subdue the last vestige of rebel au- 
thority in every State. I felt then, as now, that 
the destruction of the Government was deliberately 
determined upon by wicked and designing conspira- 
tors, whose lives and fortunes were pledged to carry 
it out ; and that no compromise, short of an uncon- 
ditional recognition of the independence of the South- 
ern States could have been, or could now be proposed, 



188 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

which they would accept. The chuiior for ' Southern 
Rights,' as the rebel journals were pleased to desig- 
nate their rallying' cry, was not to secure their as- 
sumed rights in the Union and under the Constitution, 
but to disrupt the Government, and establish an inde- 
pendent organization, based upon slavery, which they 
could at all times control. 

" The separation of the Government has for j-ears 
past been the cherished purpose of the Southern lead- 
ers. Baffled in 1832 by the stern, patriotic heroism 
of Andrew Jackson, they sullenly acquiesced, only to 
mature their diabolical schemes, and await the recur- 
rence of a more favorable opportunity to execute them. 
Then the pretext was the tariff, and Jackson, after 
foiling their schemes of nullification and disunion, 
with prophetic perspicacity warned the country 
against the renewal of their efforts to dismember the 
Government. 

"In a letter, dated May 1, 1833, to the Rev. A. J. 
Crawford, after demonstrating the heartless insin- 
cerity of the Southern nullifiers, he said-i ' Therefore 
the tariff vras only a pretext, and disunion and a 
Southern Confederacy the real object. The next pre- 
text will be the negro or slavery question.' 

" Time has fully verified this prediction, and we 
have now not only ' the negi'o or slavery question/ 
as the pretext, but the real cause of the rebellion, and 
both must go down together. It is vain to attempt 
to reconstruct the Union with the distracting element 
of slavery in it. Experience has demonstrated its 
incompatibility with free and republican government, 
and it would be unwise and unjust longer to continue 
it as one of the in«titutimis of the count v. While it 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 189 

remained subordinate to the Constitution and laws of 
the United States, I yielded to it mj^ support ; but 
when it became rebellious, and attempted to rise 
above the Government, and control its action, I thi-ew 
my humble influence against it. 

" The authority of the Government is supreme, and 
■will admit of no rivalry. No institution can rise 
above it, whether it be slavery or an}^ other organized 
power. In our happy form of government all must 
be subordinate to the will of the people, when re- 
flected through the Constitution and laws made pur- 
suant thereto, State or Federal. This great principle 
lies at the foundation of every Government, and can- 
not be disregarded without the destruction of the 
Government itself. In the support and practise of 
correct principles we can never reach wrong* results ; 
and by rigorously adhering to this great fundamental 
truth, the end will be the preservation of the Union, 
and the overthrow of an institution which has made 
war upon and attempted the destruction of the Gov- 
ernment itself. 

" The mode by which this great change — the eman- 
cipation of the slave — can be effected, is properly 
found in the power to amend the Constitution of the 
United States. This plan is eifectual and of no doubt- 
ful authority ; and while it does not contravene the 
timely exercise of the war-power by the President in 
his emancipation proclamation, it comes stamped with 
the authority of the people themselves, acting in ac- 
cordance with the written rule of the supreme law of 
the land, and must therefore give more general satis- 
faction and quietude to the distracted public mind. 

"By recurring to the principles contained in the 



190 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

resolutions so unanimously adopted by the convention, 
I find that they substantially accord with my public 
acts and opinions heretofore made known and ex- 
pressed, and are therefore most cordially -indorsed and 
approved, and the nomination, having been conferred 
without any solicitation on my part, is with the greater 
pleasure accepted. 

"In accepting the nomination I might here close, 
but I cannot forego the opportunity of saying to my 
old friends of the Democratic party proper, with whom 
I have so long and pleasantly been associated, that 
the hour has now come when that gi'eat party can 
justly vindicate its devotion to true Democratic policy 
and measures of expediency. The war is a war of 
great principles. It involves the supi'emacy and life 
of the Government itself If the rebellion triumphs, 
free government — North and South — fails. If, on the 
other hand, the Government is successful — as I do not 
doubt — its destiny is fixed, its basis permanent and 
enduring, and its career of honor and glory just be- 
gun. In a great contest like this for the existence of 
free government, the path of duty is patriotism and 
principle. Minor considerations and questions of 
administrative policy should give way to the higher 
duty of first preserving the Government ; and then 
there will be time enough to wrangle over the men 
and measures pertaining to its administration. 

" This is not the hour for strife and division among 
ourselves. Such diiferences of opinion only encourage 
the enemy, prolong the war, and waste the country. 
Unity of action and concentration of power should be 
our watchword and rallying cry. This accomplished, 
the time will rapidly approach when their armies in 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 191 

the field — that great power of the rebellion — will be 
broken and crushed by our gallant officers and brave 
soldiers; and ere long they will return to their homes 
and firesides to resume again the avocations of peace, 
with the proud consciousness that they have aided in 
the noble work of re-establishing upon a surer and 
more permanent basis the great temple of American 
Freedom. 

" I am, gentlemen, with sentiments of high regard, 
" Yours truly, 

"Andrew Johnson." 



192 ANDRE ?y' JOHNSON. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TAKES THE OATH AS PRESIDENT. 

At the warmly contested election on the 14th 
of November, 1864, all the States voting, except 
three, gave a majority of their suffrages for 
Lincoln and Johnson ; and when, on the 4th of 
March, 1865, the Vice-President elect took his 
seat as presiding officer of the Senate, he could al- 
ready see the end of the conflict in which he had 
borne so active and memorable a part. It must 
have been to him an occasion full of just satis- 
faction and honorable pride. As he looked 
around the chamber whose walls had so often 
echoed with the tones of his rebuke of secession 
doctrines and secession acts, as he saw the va- 
cant seats of a score of his former associates who 
were now wandering fugitives, his bosom must 
indeed have swelled with the cheering conscious- 
ness that, at least in his case, an honest and 
brave defence of principle had been rightly re- 
warded by the applause and gratitude of his 
country. But Providence had not destined him 
to remain in the quiet and pleasant office to 
which he had been called bv the suffrasres of the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 193 

nation. A wider sphere of honor, of usefulness, 
and of responsibihtj was thrown upon him by 
one of the most sad and starthng catastrophes in 
the wide sweep of human history. On the 14th 
of April, only six days after the close of the civil 
war by the surrender of General Lee and the 
army of Northern Yirginia, Abraham Lincoln 
fell by the hand of an assassin, and a few hours 
after "his mournful departure Andrew Johnson, 
in accordance with the provisions of the Consti- 
tution, was inducted into the exalted position of 
President of the United States. 

After the customary oath had been adminis- 
tered by the Chief-Justice, President Johnson 
delivered the following feeling and pertinent ad- 
dress : 

" Gentlemen— J must be permitted to say that I 
have been ahnost .overwhelmed by the announcement 
of the sad event which has so recently occurred. I 
feel incompetent to perform duties so important and 
responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly 
thrown upon me. As to an indication of any policy 
which may be pursued by mo in administration of the 
Government, I have to say, that that must be left 
for development as the administration progresses. 
The message or declaration must be made by the 
acts as they transpire. The only assurance that I 
can now give of the future, is by reference to the" 
past. The course which I have taken in the past, in 
connection with this rebellion, must be regarded as a 
guaranty of the future. ]\I^ past public life, which 
has been long and laborious, has been founded, as I 

9 •- 



194 ANDREW JOHXSON. 

in good conscience believe, upon a great principle of 
right, which lies at the basis of all things. The best 
energies of my life have been spent in endeavoring 
to establish and perpetuate the principles of free gov- 
ernment, and I believe that the Government, in pass- 
ing through its present trials, will settle down upon 
principles consonant with popular rights more perma- 
nent and enduring than heretofore. _I must be per- 
mitted to say, if I understand the feelings of my own 
heart, I have long labored to ameliorate and afleviate 
the condition of the great mass of the American peo- 
ple. Toil and an honest advocacy of the great pvin- 
ciples of free government, have been my lot. The 
duties have been mine — the consequences are God's. 
This has been the foundation of my political creed. I 
feel that in the end the Government will triumph, and!~ 
that these great principles will be permanently estab- 
lished. 

" In conclusion, gentlemen, let me say that I want 
your encouragement and countenance. I shall a§k 
and rely upon you and others in carrying the Govern- 
ment through its present perils. I feel, in maki-ng 
this request, that it will be heartily responded to- by_ 
you, and all other patriots and lovers of the rights and 
interests of a free people." 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 195 



CHAPTER IX. 

EECEPTION OF THE ILLINOIS DELEGATION. 

On the 18tli of April, 1865, a delegation of cit- 
izens of Illinois paid their respects to President 
Johnson, at his rooms in the Treasury Building. 

Governor Oglesby presented the delegation, 
and made the subjoined address : — 

" Mr. Preside.xt : — I take much pleasure in present- 
ing- to you this delegation of the citizens of Illinois, 
representing almost every portion of the State. We 
are drawn together by the mournful events of the 
past few days, to give some feeble expression to the 
feelings we, in common with the whole nation, realize 
as pressing us to the earth, by appropriate and re- 
spectful ceremonies. We thought it not inappropri- 
ate before we should separate, even in this sad hour, 
to seek this interview with your Excellency, that, 
while the bleeding heart is pouring out its mournful 
anguish over the death of our beloved late President, 
the idol of our State and the pride of the whole coun- 
try, we may earnestly express to you, the living head 
of this nation, our deliberate, full, and abiding confi- 
dence in you as the one who, in these dark hours, 



196 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

must bear upon yourself the mighty responsibility of 
maintaining, defending, and directing its affairs. In 
the midst of this sadness, through the oppressive 
gloom that surrounds us, we look to you and to a 
bright future for our country. The assassination of 
the President of the United States deeply depresses 
and seriously aggravates the entire nation ; but under 
our blessed Constitution it does not delay, nor for any 
great length of time retard, its progress ; does not for 
an instant disorganize or threaten its destruction. 
The record of your whole past life, familiar to all, the 
splendor of your recent gigantic efforts to stay the 
hand of treason and assassination, and restore the 
flag to the uttermost bounds of the Republic, assure 
that noble State which we represent, and, we believe, 
the people of the United States, that we may safely 
trust our destinies in your hands ; and to this end we 
come, in the name of the State of Illinois, and, we 
confidently believe, fully and faithfully expressing the 
wishes of our people, to present and pledge to you 
the cordial, earnest, and unremitting purpose of our 
State to give your administration the strong support 
we have heretofore given to the administration of our 
lamented late President, the policy of whom we have 
heretofore, do now, and shall continue to indorse." 



THE PEESroENT S BEPLY. 

President Johnson replied as foUows : — 

" Gextlemen : — I have listened with profound emo- 
tion to the kind words you have addressed to n p. 
The visit of this large delegation to spenk to me 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 197 

through you, sir, these words of enrouragement, I had 
not anticipated. In the midst of the saddening cir- 
cumstances which surround us, and the immense 
responsibility thrown upon me, an expression of the 
confidence of individuals, and still more of an influ- 
ential body like that before me, representing a great 
commcmwealth, cheers and strengthens my heavily 
burdened mind. I am at a loss for words to respond. 
In an hour like this, of deepest sorrow, were it jdos- 
sible to embody in words the feelings of my bosom, I 
could not command my lips to utter them. Perhaps 
the best reply I could make, and the one most readily 
appropriate to your kind assurances of confidence, 
would be to receive them in silence. [Sensation.] 
The throbbings of my heart since the sad catastrophe 
which has appalled us cannot be reduced to words ; 
and, oppressed as I am with the new and great re- 
sponsibility which has devolved upon me, and saddened 
with grief, I can with difficulty respond to you at all. 
But I cannot permit such expression of the confi- 
dence reposed in me by the people to pass without 
acknowledgment. To an individual like myself, who 
has never claimed much, but who has, it is true, re- 
ceived from a generous people many marks of trust 
and honor for a long time, an occasion like this and a 
manifestation of public feeling so well-timed are pe- 
culiarly acceptable. Sprung from the people myself, 
every pulsation of the popular heart finds an imme- 
diate answer in my own. By many men in public life 
such occasions are often considered merely formal. 
To me they are real. Your words of countenance 
and encouragement sank deep in my heart, and were 
I even a coward I could not but gather from them 



198 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

strength to carry out my convic^tions of right. Thus 
feeling, I shall enter upon the discharge of my great 
duty firmly, steadfastly [applause], if not with the,, 
signal ability exhibited by my predecessor, which is 
still fresh in our sorrowing minds. Need I repeat 
that no heart feels more sensibly than mine this great 
affliction ? In what I say on this occasion I shall in- 
dulge in no petty spirit of anger, no feeling of 
revenge. But we have beheld a notable event in the 
history of mankind. In the midst of the American 
people, where every citizen is taught to obey law and 
observe the rules of Christian conduct, our Chief 
Magistrate, the beloved of all hearts, has been assas- 
sinated ; and when we trace this crime to its cause, 
when we remember the source whence the assassin 
drew his inspiration, and then look at the result, we 
stand yet more astounded at this most barbarous, 
most diabolical assassination. Such a crime as the 
murder of a great and good man, honored and revered, 
the beloved and the hope of the people, springs not 
alone from a solitary individual of ever so desperate 
wickedness. We can trace its cause through succes- 
sive steps, without my enumerating them here, back 
to that source which is the spring of all our woes. 
No one can say that if the perpetrator of this fiendish 
deed be arrested he should not undergo the extremest 
penalty the law knows for crime ; none will say that 
mercy should interpose. But is he alone guilty ? 
Here, gentlemen, you perhaps expect me to present 
some indication of my future policy. One thing I 
will say. Every era teaches its lesson. The times 
we live in are not without instruction. The American 
people must be taught — if they do not already feel — 



SEKVICES AXD SrEECHES, 199 

that treason is a crimo, and nnist be punished [ap- 
plause] ; that the Government will not always bear 
with its enemies ; that it is strong, not only to pro- 
tect, but to punish. [Applause.] When we turn to 
the criminal code and examine the catalogue of 
cnmes, we there find arson laid down as a crime with 
its appropriate penalty ; we find there theft and rob- 
bery and murder given as crimes ; and there, too, we 
find the last and highest of crimes— treason. [Ap- 
plause.] With other and inferior offences our people 
are familiar. But in our peaceful history treason has 
been almost unknown. The people must understand 
that it is the blackest of crimes, and will be surely 
punished. [Applause.] I make this allusion, not to 
excite the already exasperated feelings of the public, 
but to point out the principles of public justice which 
should guide our action at this particular juncture, 
and which accord with sound public morals. Let it 
be engraven on every heart that treason is a crime, 
and traitors shall suffer its penalty. [Applause.] 
While we arc appalled, overwhelmed at the fall of one 
man in our midst by the hand of a traitor, shall we 
allow men— I care not by what weapons— to attempt 
the life of a State with impunity ? While we strain 
our minds to comprehend the enormity of this assas- 
smation, shall we allow the nation to be assassinated ? 
[Applause.] I speak in no spirit of unkindness. I 
leave the events of the future to be disposed of as 
they arise, regarding myself as the humble instrument 
of the American people. In this, as in all things, 
justice and judgment shall be determined by them! 
I do not harbor bitter or revengeful feelings towards 



200 ANDltEW JOHNSON. 

any. lu g-eneral terms, I wonld say that public mor- 
als and public opinion should be established upon the 
sure and inflexible principles of justice. [x\pplause.] 
When the question of exercising mercy comes before 
me, it will be considered calmly, judicially — remem- 
bering that I am the Executive of the nation. I know 
men love to have their names spoken of in connection 
with acts of mercy ; and how easy it is to yield to 
this impulse 1 But we must not forget that what may 
be mercy to the individual is cruelty to the State. 
[Applause.] In the exercise of mercy there should 
be no doubt left that this high prerogative is not used 
to relieve a few at the expense of the many. Be as- 
sured that I shall never forget that I am not to con- 
sult my own feelings alone, but to give an account to 
the whole people. [Applause.] In regard to my 
future course I will now make no professions, no 
pledges. I have been connected somewhat actively" 
with public affairs, and to the history of my past pub- 
lic acts, which is familiar to you, I refer for those 
principles which have governed me heretofore, and 
will guide me hereafter. In general, I will say I have 
long labored for the amelioration and elevation of the 
great mass of mankind. -My opinions as to the nature 
of popular government have long been cherished ; 
and constituted as I am, it is now too late in life for 
me to change them. I believe that government was 
made for man, not man for government. [Applause.] ; 
This struggle of the people against the most gigantic 
rebellion the world ever saw has demonstrated that 
the attachment of the people to their Government is 
the strongest national defence human wisdom can 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 201 

devise. [Applause.] So long as each man feels that 
the interests of the Government are his interests; so 
long" as the public heart turns in the right direction, 
and the people understand and appreciate the theory 
of our Government and love liberty, our Constitution 
will be transmitted unimpaired. If the time ever 
comes when the people shall fail, the Government 
will fail, and we shall cease to be one of the nations 
of the earth. After having preserved our form of free 
government, and shown its power to maintain its ex- 
istence through the vicissitudes of nearly a century, 
it may be that it was necessary for us to pass through 
this last ordeal of intestine strife to prove that this 
Government will not perish from internal weakness, 
but will stand to defend itself against all foes and 
punish treason. [Applause.] In the dealings of an 
inscrutable Providence and by the operation of the 
Constitution, I have been thrown unexpectedly into 
this position. My past life, especially my course dur- 
ing the present unholy rebellion, is before you. I 
have no principles to retract ; I defy any one to 
point to any of my public acts at variance with the 
fixed principles which have guided me through life-. 
I have no professions to offer. Professions and prom- 
ises would be worth nothing at this time. No one 
can foresee the circumstances that will hereafter 
arise. Had any man, gifted with prescience four 
years ago, uttered and written down in advance the 
events of this period, they would have seemed more 
marvellous than any thing in the ' Arabian Nights.' 
I shall not attempt to anticipate the future. As events 
occur, and it becomes necessary for me to act, I shall 
dispose of each as it arises, deferring any declaration 

9* 



202 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

or message until it can be written, paragraph by 
paragraph, in the light of events as they transpire." 

The members of the delegation were then sev- 
erally introduced to the President by Governor 
Oglesby. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 203 



CHAPTEE X. 

EECEPTION OF THE BEITISH MIBASSADOR, 

On the 20tli of April, 1865, Sir Frederick A. 
Bruce, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiary of Her Britannic Majesty to the United 
States Government, presenting his credentials to 
the President, sj)oke as follows : 

" Mr. Presiden^t : — It is with deep and sincere concern 
that I have to accompany my first official act with ex- 
pressions of condolence. On Saturday last the cere- 
mony that takes place here to-day was to have been 
performed, but the gracious intentions of the late la- 
mented President were frustrated by the events which 
have plunged this country in consternation and afflic- 
tion, and which will call forth in Gi*eat Britain feelings 
of horror, as well as of profound sympathy. It be- 
comes, therefore, my duty, sir, to present the letter 
from my sovereign, of which I am the bearer, to you, 
as President of the United States; and it is with pleas- 
ure that I convey the assurances of regard and good- 
will which her Majesty entertains towards you, sir, as 
President of the United States. I am further directed 
to express her Majesty's friendly disposition towards 
the great nation of which you arc Chief Magistrate, 



204 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

and her heart}' good wishes for its peace, prosperitj, 
and welfare. Her Majesty has nothing niorc at heart 
than to conciliate those relations of amity and good 
understanding which have so long and so happily ex- 
isted between the two kindred nations of the United 
States and Great Britain, and it is in this spirit that I 
am directed to perform the duties of the important and 
honorable post confided to me. Permit me, sir, to say, 
that it shall be the object of my earnest endeavors to 
carry out my instructions faithfully in this respect, and 
to express the hope, sir, that you will favorably con- 
sider my attempts to merit your approbation, and to 
give effect to the friendly intentions of the Queen and 
of her Majesty's Government. I have the honor to 
place in your hands the letter of credence confided to 
me by her Majesty.'^ 



THE president's REPLY. 

To which President Johnson replied : 

"Sir Frederick A. Bruce: — The very cordial and 
friendly sentiments which you have expressed on the 
part of her Britannic Majesty give rne great pleasure. 
Great Britain and' the United States, by the extended 
and various forms of com^merce between them, the con- 
tiguity of portions of their possessions,, and the simi- 
larity of theu' language and laws, are drawn into con- 
stant and intimate intercourse. At the same time 
they are, from the same causes, exposed to frequent 
occasions of misunderstanding, only to be averted by 
jnutual forbearance. So eag-erly are the people of the 
two countries engaged, throughout almost the whole 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 205 

world, in the pursuit of similar commercial enterprises, 
accompanied by natural rivalries and jealousies, that, 
at first sisrht, it would almost seem that the two Gov- 
ernments must be enemies, or at best cold and calcu- 
lating friends. So devoted are the two nations through- 
out all their domain, and even in their most remote 
territory and colonial possessions, to the principles of 
civil rights and constitutional liberty, that, on the 
other hand, the superficial observer might erroneously 
count upon a continued concert of action and sympa- 
thy, amounting to an alliance between them. Each is 
charged with the development of the progress of the 
human race, and each in its sphere is subject to diflB- 
culties and trials not participated in by the other. The 
interests of civilization and of humanity require that 
the two should be friends. I have always known and 
accounted as a fact, honorable to both countries, that 
the Queen of England is a sincere and honest well- 
wisher to the United States. I have been equally 
frank and explicit in the opinion that the friendship of 
the United States towards Great Britain is enjoined by 
all considerations of interest and of sentiment affecting 
the character of both. You will, therefore, be accepted 
as a minister friendly and well-disposed to the mainte- 
nance of peace and the honor of both countries. You 
will find myself and all my associates acting in ac- 
cordance with the same enlightened policy and con- 
sistent sentiments, and so I am sure that it will not 
occur in your case that either yourself or this Gov- 
ernment will ever have cause to regret that such an 
important relationship existed at such a crisis. 



206 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

EECEPTION OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS. 

Soon after the reception of the British Minister, 
the members of the Diplomatic Cori^s were pre- 
sented to President Johnson, when Baron Yon 
Gerolt addressed the President as follows : — 

" Mr. President : — The representatives of foreign 
nations have assembled here to express to your Excel- 
lency their feelings at the deplorable event of which 
they have been witnesses ; to say how sincerely they 
share the national mourning- for the cruel fate of the 
late President, Abraham Lincoln, and how deeply they 
sympathize with the Government and people of the 
United States in their great affliction. With equal 
sincerity we tender to you, Mr. President, our best 
wishes for the welfare and prosperity of the United 
States, and for your personal health and happiness. 
May we be allowed, also, Mr. President, to give utter- 
ance on this occasion to our sincerest hopes for an 
early re-establishment of peace in this great countrj'-, 
and for the maintenance of the friendly relations be- 
tween the Government of the United States and the 
Governments which we represent ?" 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 207 

REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT. 

To whicli tlie President replied : — 

" Gentlemen op the Diplomatic Body : — I heartily 
thank you, on behalf of the Government and people of 
the United States, for the sympathy which you have 
so feelingly expressed upon the mournful event to 
which you refer. The good wishes also which you 
kindly offer for the welfare and prosperity of the 
United States, and for my personal health and happi- 
ness, are gratefully received. Your hopes for the 
early restoration of peace in this country are cordially 
reciprocated by me, and you may be assured that I 
shall leave nothing undone towards preserving those 
relations of friendship which now fortunately exist be- 
tween the United States and all foreign powers." 



208 ANDREW JOHNSON". 



CHAPTEK XII. 

ADDRESS TO LOYAL SOUTHERNERS. 

During the same month a deputation of loyal 
men from various Southern States waited on the 
President. In reply to a brief address, he said : — 

"It is hardly necessary for me on tins occasion to 
say that my sympathies and impulses, in connectien 
with this nefarious Rebellion, beat in unison with 
yours. Those who have passed through this bitter 
ordeal, and who participated in it to a great extent, 
are more competent, as I think, to judge and deter- 
mine the true policy which should be pursued. [Ap- 
plause.] I have but little to say on this question in 
response to what has been said. It enunciates and 
expresses my own feelings to the fullest extent, and 
in much better language than I can at the present 
moment summon to my aid. The most that I can say 
is, that, entering upon the duties that have devolved 
upon me under circumstances that are perilous and 
responsible, and being thrown into the position I now 
occupy unexpectedly, in consequence of the sad event, 
the heinous assassination which has taken place — in 
view of all that is before me and the circumstances 
that surround me — I cannot but feel that your en- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 209 

courag-emeut and kindness are peculiarly acceptable 
and appropriate. I do not think you, who have been 
familiar with my course, — you who are from the 
South, — deem it necessary for me to make any pro- 
fessions as to the future on this occasion, nor to ex- 
press what my course will be upon questions that 
may arise. If my past life is no indication of what 
my future will be, my professions were both worth- 
less and empty ; and in returning you my sincere 
thanks for this encourag-craent and sympathy, I can 
only reiterate what I have said before, and, in part, 
what has just been read. As far as clemency and 
mercy are concerned, and the proper exercise of the 
pardoning power, I think I understand the nature 
and character of the latter. In the exercise of clem- 
enc}'' and mercy, that pardoning power should be ex- 
ercised with caution. I do not give utterance to my 
opinions on this point in any spirit of revenge or un- 
kind feelings. Mercy and clemency have been pretty 
large ingredients in my composition, having been the 
Executive of a State, and thereby placed in a position 
in which it was necessary to exercise clemency and 
mercy. I have been charged with going too far, be- 
ing too lenient, and have become satisfied that mercy 
without justice is a crime, and that when mercy and 
clemency are exercised by the Executive, it should 
always be done in view of justice, and in that man- 
ner alone is properly exercised that great preroga- 
tive. The time has come, as you who have had to 
drink this bitter cup are fully aware, when the Ameri- 
can people should be made to understand the true 
nature of crime. Of crime generally our people have 
a high understanding, as well as of the necessity for 



210 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

its punishment ; but in the catalogue of crimes there 
is one, and that the hiarhest known to the laws and 
the Constitution, of which, since the days of Jefferscm 
and Aaron Burr, they have become oblivious. Tliat 
is — treason. Indeed, one who has become distin- 
guished in treason and in this Rebellion said, that 
' when traitors become numerous enough, treason be- 
comes respectable ; and to become a tra/itor, was to 
constitute a portion of the aristocracy of the country.' 
God protect the people against such au aristocracy. 
Yes, the time has come when the people should be 
taught to understand the length and breadth, the 
depth and height of treason. An individual occupy- 
ing the highest position among us was lifted to that 
position by the free offering of the American people, — 
the highest position on the habitable globe. This 
man we have seen, revered, and loved, — one who, if 
he erred at all, erred ever on the side of clemency 
and mercy, — that man we have seen Treason strike, 
through a fitting instrument, and we have beheld him 
fall like the bright star falling from its sphere. Now, 
there is none but would say, if the question came up, 
what should be done with the individual who assassi- 
nated the Chief Magistrate of the nation, — He is but 
a man — one man, after all. But if asked what should 
be done with the assassin, what should be the pen- 
alty, the forfeit exacted ? I know what response 
dwells in every bosom. It is, that he should pay the 
forfeit with his life. And hence we see there are 
times when mercy and clemency, without justice, be- 
come a crime. The one should temper the other, and 
bring about that proper means. And if we should 
say this when the case was the simple murder of one 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 211 

man by liis fcllow-maii, what should we say when 
asked what should be done with him, or them, or those, 
who have raised impious hands to take away the life 
of a nation composed of thirty millions of people ? 
What would be the reply to that question ? But while 
in mercy we remember justice, in the languag-e that 
has been uttered, I say, justice towards the leaders, 
the conscious leaders ; but I also say amnesty, con- 
ciliation, clemency, and mercy to the thousands of our 
countrymen whom you and I know have been de- 
ceived or driven into this infernal Kebellion. And so 
I return to where I started from, and again repeat 
that it is time our people were taught to know that 
treason is a crime, i«jt a mere political difference, not 
a mere contest between two parties, in which one 
succeeded and the other has simply failed. They 
must know it is treason ; for if they had succeeded, 
the life of the nation would have been reft from it, — 
the Union would have been destroyed. Surely the 
Constitution sufficiently defines treason. It consists 
in levying war against the United States, and in giv- 
ing their enemies aid and comfort. With this defini- 
tion it requires the exercise of no great acumen 
to ascertain who are traitors. It requires no 
great perception to tell who have levied war against 
the United States ; nor does it require any great 
stretch of reasoning to ascertain who has given aid 
to the enemies of the United States ; and when the 
Government of the United States does ascertain who 
are the conscious and intelligent ti'aitors, the penalty 
and the forfeit should be paid. [Applause.] I know 
how to appreciate the condition of being driven from 
one's home. I can sympathize with him whose all has 



212 ANDREW JOHXSON, 

been taken from him, — with him wlio has been denied 
the place that gave his cliildren birth. But let us, 
withal, in the restoration of true government, proceed 
temperately and dispassionately, and hope and pray 
that the time will come, as I believe, when all can re- 
turn and remain at our homes, and treason and traitors 
be driven from our land, [applause], when again law 
and order shall reign, and the banner of our country 
be unfurled over every inch of territory within the 
area of the United States. [Applause.] In conclu- 
sion, let me thank you most profoundly for this en- 
couragement and manifestation of your regard and 
respect, and assure you that I can give no greater 
assurance regarding the settlement of this question, 
than that I intend to discharge my duty, and in that 
way which shall, in the earliest possible hour, bring 
back peace to our distracted country. And I hope 
the time is not far distant when our people can all 
return to their homes and firesides, and resume their 
various avocations." 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 213 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

SPEECH TO THE INDIANA DELEGATION. 

At the close of the month of April, 1865, the 
President spoke as follows, in response to an 
address from a delegation from the State of 
Indiana : — 

"As my honorable friend (Governor Morton) knows, 
I long since took the ground that this Government 
was sent upon a great mission among tlie nations of 
the earth ; that it had a great work to perform, and 
that in starting it, it was started in perpetuity. Look 
back for one single moment to the Articles of Confed- 
eration, and then come down to 1787, when the Con- 
stitution was formed — what do you find ? That we, 
' the People of the United States, in order to form a 
more perfect government,' etc. Provision is made 
for the admission of new States, to be added to the 
old ones embraced within the Union. Now, turn to 
the Constitution ; we find that amendments may be 
made by a recommendation of two-thirds of the mem- 
bers of Congress, if ratified by three-fourths of the 
States. Provision is made for the admission of new 
States ; no provision is made for tlie secession of okl 
ones. The instrument was made to be good in perpe- 
tuity, and you can take liokl of it, not to break up the 



214 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

Government, but to go on perfecting- it more and more 
as it runs down the stream of time. We find the 
Government composed of integral parts. An indi- 
vidual is an integer, and a State itself is an integer, 
and the various States form the Union, which is itself 
an integer, they all making up the Government of the 
United States. Now we come to the point of my ar- 
gument, so far as concerns the perpetuity of the 
Government. We have seen that the Government is 
composed of parts, each essential to the whole, and 
the whole essential to each part. Now, if an indi- 
vidual (part of a State) declare war against the 
whole, in violation of the Constitution, he, as a citi- 
zen, has violated the law, and is responsible for the 
act as an individual. There may be more than one 
individual ; it may go on until they become parts of 
States. Sometimes the rebellion may go on increas- 
ing in number till the State machinery is overturned, 
and the country becomes like a man that is paralyzed 
on one side. But we find in the Constitution a great 
panacea provided. It provides that the United 
States (that is, the great integer) shall guarantee to 
each State (the integers composing the whole) in this 
Union a republican form of government. Yes, if re- 
bellion has been rampant, and set aside the machinery 
of a State for a time, there stands the great law to 
remove the paralysis, and revitalize it and put it on 
its feet again. When we come to understand our 
system of government, though it be complex, we see 
how beautifully one part moves in harmony with an- 
other ; then we see our Government is to be a perpe- 
tuity, there being no provision for pulling it down, 
the Union being its vitalizing power, imparting life 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 215 

to the whole of the States that move around it like 
planets around the sun, receiving thence light, and 
heat, and motion. Upon this idea of destroying 
States, my position has been heretofore well known, 
and I see no cause to change it now, and I am glad 
to hear its reiteration on the present occasion. Some 
are satisfied with the idea that States- are to be lost 
in territorial and other divisions ; are to lose their 
character as States. But their life-breath has only 
been suspended, and it is a high constitutional obli- 
gation we have to secure each of these States in the 
possession and enjoyment of a republican form of 
government. A State may be in the Government 
with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of 
rebellion lose that feature ; but it was a State when 
it went into rebellion, and when it comes out without 
the institution, it is still a State. I hold it a solemn 
obligation in any one of these States where the rebel 
armies have been beaten back or expelled, I care not 
how small the ship of state, I hold it, I say, a high 
duty to protect and to secure to them a republican 
form of government. This is no new opinion. It is 
expressed in conformity with my understanding of 
the genius and theory of our Government. Then, in 
adjusting and putting the. Government upon its legs 
again, I think the progress of this work must pass 
into the hands of its friends. If a State is to be 
nursed until it again gets strength, it must be nursed 
by its friends, not smothered by its enemies. Now, 
permit me to remark, that while I have opposed dis- 
solution and disintegration on the one hand, on the 
other I am equally opposed to consolidation, or the 
centralization of power in the hands of a few. i 



216 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

A DELEGATION OF SOUTHERN MEN VISIT THE 
PRESIDENT. 

One of tlie most interesting episodes wliicli lias 
occurred since Mr. Johnson became President, 
probably took place in a spontaneous visit made 
by a number of prominent and distinguished 
Southern gentlemen, who happened to be in 
Washington on business. The significance of 
this visit arose from the fact that there was noth- 
ing of a political character to it, but was prompted 
solely by that respect which Mr. Johnson's hon- 
orable and humane course had inspired in the 
hearts of the Southern people. Where they had 
been apprehensive of revenge, they found kind- 
ness. Where they had looked for severity, they 
found gentleness. Animated by such feelings, 
those gentlemen determined to pay Mr. Johnson 
such a call as would be a surprise. 

He was informed the day previous that some 
Southern gentlemen desired to pay their respects 
to him, and the hour at which it would be agree- 
able for him to receive them was fixed. The next 
day, September 11, accordingly, the gentlemen 
repaired to the White House, and meeting in the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 217 

East Eoom, organized themselves into a formal 
delegation. Mr. Phillips, of Alabama, was called 
to the chair. Judge Lockrane, of Georgia, stated 
that their object was to pay a visit of courtesy to 
the President, and express to him their unquali- 
fied confidence in the justice and magnanimit}^ of 
the Government in the matter of reconstruction. 
On motion, Messrs. Bliss, of Alabama ; McFar- 
land, of Virginia ; White, of Texas ; Cannon, of 
South Carolina ; Bass, of Arkansas ; Wilkins, of 
Mississippi ; Lockrane, of Georgia, and Baker, of 
Florida, were designated to individually present 
to the President such persons as were present 
from their respective States. The delegation was 
admitted soon after eleven o'clock, and presented 
to the President as follows, by Mr. McParland, of 
Virginia : 

" Mr. President — The gentlemen accompanying me, 
and whom I have the honor of introducing' to you, 
constitute a number of the most respectable citizens 
of nine of the Southern States. They come, sir, for 
the purpose of manifesting the sincere respect and 
regard they entertain for you, and to express their 
sincere determination to co-operate with you in what- 
ever shall tend to promote the interests and welfare 
of our common country, and to say that they are as 
earnest now, and faithful to their allegiance to the 
United States and to the Constitution of the Union as 
in the past, and that they have great confidence in 
your wisdom to heal the wounds that have been 

made, and in your disposition to exercise all the le- 

10 



218 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

niency which can be commeuded by a sound and ju- 
dicious policy. That they are assured, in doing- this, 
of your desire and intention to sustain and maintain 
Southern rights in the union of the United States." 

The President was surprised at tlie imposing 
appearance of the delegation, and was evidently 
much affected in reply. Every gesture and ut- 
terance was full of subdued eloquence. The re- 
ply was as follows : 

" Gentlemen — I can only say, in reply to the remarks 
of your chairman, that I am highly gratified to receive 
the assurances he has given me. They are more than 
I could have expected under the circumstances. I 
must say I was unprepared to receive so numerous a 
delegation on this occasion ; it was unexpected ; I 
had no idea it was to be so large, or represent so 
many States. When I expressed as I did my willing- 
ness to see at any time so many of you as chose to 
do me the honor to call upon me, and stated that I 
should be gratified at receiving any manifestations of 
regard you might think proper to make, I was totally 
unprepared for any thing equal to the present demon- 
sti'ation. I am free to say it excites in my mind 
feelings and emotions that language is totally inade- 
quate to express. When I look back upon my past 
actions, and recall a period scarcely more than four 
short years ago, when I stood battling for principles 
which many of j^ou opposed and thought were wrong-, 
I was battling for the same principles that actuate 
me to-day, and which principles, I thank my God, you 
have come forward on this occasion to manifest a dis- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 219 

position to support. I say now, as I have said on 
many former occasions, that I entertain no personal 
resentments, enmities, or animosities to any living- 
soul south of Mason and Dixon's line, however much 
he may have differed from me in principle. The 
stand I then took I claim to have been the only true 
one. I remember how I stood pleading with my 
Southern brethren, when they stood with their hats 
in their hands ready to turn their backs upon the 
United States ; how I implored them to stand with 
me there, and maintain our rights and fight our bat- 
tles under the laws and Constitution of the United 
States. I think now, as I thought then, and endeav- 
ored to induce them to believe, that our true position 
was under the law and under the Constitution of the 
Union, with the institution of slavery in it ; but if 
that principle. made an issue that rendered a disinte- 
gration possible— if that made an issue which should 
prevent us from transmitting to our children a coun- 
try as bequeathed to us by our fathers — I had noth- 
ing else to do but to stand by the Government, be 
the consequences what they might. I said then, what 
you all know, that I was for the institutions of the 
country as guaranteed by the Constitution, but above 
all things I was for the Union of the States. I re- 
member the taunts, the jeers, the scowls with which 
I was treated. I remem.ber the circle that stood 
around me, and remember the threats and intimida- 
tions that were freely uttered by the men who op- 
posed me, and whom I wanted to befriend and guide 
by the light that led me ; but feeling conscious in 
my own integrity, and that I was right, I heeded not 
what they might say or do to me, and was inspired 



220 ANDEEW JOHNSON. 

and encouraged to do my duty regardless of aught 
else, and have lived to see the realization of my pre- 
dictions, and the fatal error of those whom I vainly 
essayed to save from the results I could not but fore- 
see. Gentlemen, we have passed through this rebel- 
lion. I say we, for it was we who .are responsible 
for it. Yes, the South made the issue, and I know 
the nature of the Southern people well enough to 
know that when they have become convinced of an 
error, they frankly acknowledge it in a manly, open, 
direct manner ; and now, in the performance of that 
duty, or, indeed, in any act they imdertake to per- 
form, they do it heartily and frankly ; and now that 
they come to me, I understand them as saying that, 
' We made the issue. We set up the Union of the 
States against the institution of slavery. We selected 
as arbitrator the God of battles ; the arbitrament 
was the sword. The issue was fairly and honorably 
met. Both the questions presented have been settled 
against us, and we are prepared to accept the is- 
sue.' I find on all sides this spirit of candor and 
honor prevailing. It is said by all : 'The issue was 
ours, and the judgment has been given against us ; 
and the decision having been made against us, we feel 
bound in honor to abide by the arbitrament. In doing 
this we are doing ourselves no dishonor, and should 
not feel humiliated or degraded, but rather that we 
are ennobling ourselves b}'' our action ; and we 
should feel that the Government has treated ixs mag- 
nanimously, and meet the Government upon the terras 
it has so magnanimously proffered us.' 

" So far as I am concerned, personally, I am unin- 
fluenced by any question, whether it affects the North 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES 231 

or the South, the East or the West. I stand where I 
did of old, battling for the Constitution and the union 
of these United States. In doing so I know I opposed 
some of you gentlemen of the South when this doctrine 
of secession was being urged upon the countiy, and 
the declaration of your right to break up the Govern- 
ment and disintegrate the Union was made. I stand 
to-day, as I have ever stood, firmly in the opinion that 
if a monopoly contends against this country, the mo- 
nopoly must go down, and the country must go up. 
Yes, the issue was made by the South against the 
Government, and the Government has triumphed; and 
the South, true to her instincts of frankness and manly 
honor, comes forth and expresses her willingness to 
abide the result of the decision in good faith. While 
I think that the rebellion has been arrested and sub- 
dued, and am happy in the consciousness of a duty 
well performed, I want not only you, but the people 
of the world to know, that while I dreaded and feared 
disintegration of the States, I am equally opposed to 
consolidation or concentration of power here, under 
whatever guise or name; and if the issue is forced 
upon us, I shall still endeavor to pursue the same 
efforts to dissuade from this doctrine of running to 
extremes : but I say, let the same rules be applied. 
Let the Constitution be our guide. Let the preserva- 
tion of that and the union of the States be our princi- 
pal aim. Let it be our hope that the Government may 
be perpetual, and that the principles of the Govern- 
ment, founded as they are on right and justice, may 
be handed down without spot or blemish to our pos- 
terity. As I have before remarked to you, I am grati- 
fied to see so many of you here to-day. It manifests 



222 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

a spirit I am p. eased to observe. I know it has been 
said of me that my asperities are sharp, tliat I had 
vindictive feelings to gratify, and that I should not 
fail to avail myself of the opportunities that would 
present themselves to gratify such despicable feelings. 
Gentlemen, if my acts will not speak for me and for 
themselves, then any professions I might now make 
would be equally useless. But, gentlemen, if I know 
myself, as I think I do, I know that I am of the South- 
ern people, and I love tlieni and will do all in my 
power to restore them to tliat state of happiness and 
prosperity which they enjoyed before the madness of 
misguided men, in whom they had reposed their con- 
fidence, led them astray to their own undoing. If 
there is any thing that can be done on my part, on 
correct principles, on the principles of the Constitu- 
tion, to promote these ends, be assured it shall be done. 
Let me assure you, also, that there is no disposition 
on the part of the Government to deal harshly with 
the Southern people. There I'nay be speeches pub- 
lished from various quarters that may breathe a differ- 
ent spirit. Do not let theni trouble or excite you, but 
believe that it is, as it is, the great object of the Gov- 
ernment to make the union of these United States 
more complete and perfect than ever, and to maintain 
it on constitutional principles, if possible, more firmly 
than it has ever before been. Then, why cannot we 
all come up to the work in a proper spirit ? In other 
words, let us look to the Constitution. The issue has 
been made and decided; then, as Avise men — as men 
who see right and are determined to follow it as fathers 
and brothers, and as men who love their country in 
this hour of trial and suffering — why cannot we come 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 223 

up and help to settle the questions of the hour and ad" 
just them according to the principles of honor and 
of justice ? The institution of slavery is gone. The 
former status of the negro had to be changed, and we, 
as wise rnen, must recognize so patent a fact and 
adapt ourselves to circumstances as they surround us, 
[Voices, * We are willing to do so. Yes, sir, we are 
willing to do so.'] I believe you are. I believe when 
your faith is pledged, when your consent has been 
given, as I have already said, I believe it will be main- 
tained in good faith, and every pledge or promise fully 
carried out. [Cries, ' It will.'] All I ask or desire of 
the South or the North, the East or the West, is to be 
sustained in carrying out the principles of the Consti- 
tution. It is not to be denied that we have been great 
sufferers on both sides. Good men have fallen on both 
sides, and much misery is being endured as the neces- 
sary result of so gigantic a contest. Why, then, can- 
not we come together, and around the common altar 
of our country heal the wounds that have been made ? 
Deep wounds have been inflicted. Our country has 
been scarred all over. Then, why cannot we approach 
each other upon principles which are right in them- 
selves, and which will be productive of good to all ? 
The day is not distant when we shall feel like some 
family that have had a deep and desperate feud, the 
various members of which have come together and 
compared the evils and sufierings they had inflicted 
upon each other. They had seen the influence of their 
error and its result, and, governed by a generous spirit 
of conciliation, they had become mutually forbearing 
and forgiving, and returned to their old habits of fra- 
ternal kindness, and become better friends than ever. 



224 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

Then let us consider that the feud which alienated us 
has been settled and adjusted to our mutual satisfac- 
tion, and that we come tog-ether to be bound by firmer 
bonds of love, respect, and confidence than ever. The 
North cannot get along without the South, nor the 
South from the ]%rth, the East from the West, nor the 
West from the East; and I say it is our duty to do all 
that in our power lies to perpetuate and make stronger 
the bonds of our Union, seeing that it is for the com- 
mon good of all that we should be united. I feel that 
this Union, though but the creation of a century, is to 
be perpetuated for all time, and that it cannot be de- 
stroyed except by the all-wise God who created it. 
Gentlemen, I repeat, I sincerely thank you for the re- 
spect manifested on this occasion, and for the expres- 
sions of approbation and confidence please accept my 
sincere thanks." 

Mr. McFarland replied as follows : 

" Mr. President : On behalf of this delegation I 
return you my sincere thanks for j'our kind, g-en- 
erous — aye, magnanimous — expressions of kindly feel- 
ing towards the people of the South." 

The remarks of the President, so full of kindly 
feeling and generous confidence, w^ere frequently^ 
interrupted with applause ; and it is doubtful 
whether, among all the interviews which Mr. 
Johnson has had with Southern men since the 
termination of the war, there has been one whom 
the bricht and nobler traits of his character have 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 225 

shown out more conspiciiously, or one ■wliich 
made so deep and so lasting an impression on 
tlie Southern mind. In this they read the lan- 
guage of the heart — always, after all, more to be 
relied upon and trusted than the cold, intellectual 
responses of the head, be they never so tmexcep- 
tionable or satisfactory. 

10* 



226 A.NDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

VETO OF THE EEEEDJVIEN's BUREAU BILL. 

There is no trait of human cliaracter more 
tlioroughly worthy of respect than consistency. 
So common is the yielding both in private and 
pubhc hfe to feelings of expediency, of interest, 
of personal and political prejudices and antip- 
athies, that to see a man acting under all cir- 
cumstances with a firm and steady adlierence to 
principle is sure to excite admiration. The pres- 
ent age can afford no grander example of this 
noble virtue than the conduct of President John- 
son in his policy of again restoring to its full life 
and healthful action the broken and disordered 
members of the once glorious Federal Union. 
He early took the ground that the secession of a 
State was an entire impossibility, that an ordinance 
declaring it was in its every conception null and 
void, and that upon the close of armed opposition 
to the General Government the States engaged in 
it resumed, as a matter of course, their original 
position. The Congress in session at the com- 
mencement of the late civil war took the same 
view of the subject, when, after the first terrible 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 227 

defeat of Manassas, it unanimously adopted a 
resolution to the effect that the war was not 
waged for the purpose of interfering in any man- 
ner with the rights of the States, nor with their 
domestic institutions, but solely and entirely for 
the preservation and restoration of the Union 
itself. The present Congress, however, refuses 
to abide by the act of its predecessor, and though 
hostilities have long since ceased, the late insur- 
gent States are denied all State attributes, and 
condemned to the painful and ignominious fate 
of conquered provinces. This stand of Congress, 
directly in opposition to the well known opinions 
of the President, has brought out all the inde- 
pendence and energy of his character in a man- 
ner calculated to electrify the people, and to 
cause them to rely with the utmost confidence 
upon his capacity to restore once again the 
unity, the prosperity, and the happiness of the 
country. 

An opportunity was afforded him in his famous 
veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and his speech 
in response to the congratulations of his country- 
men upon that auspicious event, to proclaim to 
the whole world the strength of his convictions, 
the purity of his patriotism, and the indomitable 
power and courage of his soul. We give these 
remarkable utterances in full ; for no sketch of 
President Johnson can be complete without this 
crowning evidence of the wonderful consistency 
of his political career : 



228 ANDREW jonxsox. 

" Constant as the Northern Star ; 
Of whose true, fix'd, and resting quahtj* 
There is no fellow in the firnaament." 

" To THE Senate of the United States : , 

" I have examined with cai-e the bill which origi- 
nated in the Senate, and has been passed by the two 
Houses of Congress, to amend an act entitled ' An act 
to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and 
refugees, and for other purposes/ Having, with much 
regret, come to the conclusion that it would not be 
consistent with the public welfare to give my ap- 
proval to the measure, I return the bill to the Senate 
with my objections to its becoming a law. 

" I might call to mind, in advance of these objec- 
tions, that there is no inamediate necessity for the pro- 
posed measure. The act to establish a bureau for 
the relief of freedmen and refugees, which was ap- 
proved in the m.onth of March last, has not yet expired. 
It was thought stringent and extensive enough for 
the purpose in view. Before it ceases to have effect, 
further experience may assist to guide us to a wise 
conclusion as to the policy to be adopted in time of 
peace. 

" I have, with Congress, the strongest desire to se- 
cure to the freedmen the full enjoyment of their free- 
dom and their property and their entire independence 
and equality in making contracts for their labor. But 
the bill before me contains provisions which, in my 
opinion, are not warranted by the Constitution and 
ai-e not well suited to accomplish the end in view. 
The bill proposes to establish by authority of Con- 
gress military jurisdiction over all parts of the United 



SEEVICES AND SPEECHES. 229 

States containing refugees and freedmeu. It would, 
by its very nature, apply with most force to those 
parts of the United States in which the freedmeu most 
abound ; and it expressly extends the existing tem- 
porary jurisdiction of the Freedmen^s Bureau, with 
greatly enlarged powers, over those States in which 
the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been 
interrupted by the rebellion. The source from which 
this military jurisdiction is to emanate is none other 
than the President of the United States, acting through 
the War Department and the Commissioner of the 
Freedmen's Bureau. The agents to carry out this 
military jurisdiction are to be selected either from the 
army or from civil life. The country is to be divided 
into districts and sub-districts, and the number of sal- 
aried agents to be employed may be equal to the num- 
ber of counties or parishes in all the United States 
whei'e freedmeu and refugees are to be found. The 
subjects over which this military jurisdiction is to ex- 
tend in every part of the United States, include pro- 
tection to all employees, agents, and officers of this 
bureau in the exercise of the duties imposed upon 
them by the bill. In eleven States it is further to ex- 
tend over all cases affecting freedmen and refugees 
discriminated against by local law, custom, or preju- 
dice. In those eleven States the bill subjects any 
white person who may be charged with depriving a 
freedman of any civil rights or immunities belonging 
to white persons to imprisonment or fine, or both, 
without, however, defining the civil rights and immu- 
nities which are thus to be secured to the freedmen 
by military law. This military jurisdiction also ex- 
tends to all questions that may arise respecting con- 



230 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

tracts. The agcMit, who is thus to exercise the office 
of a military judge, may be a stranger, entirely igno- 
rant of the laws of the place, and exposed to the errors 
of judgment to which all men are liable. The exercise 
of power over which there is no legal supervision, by 
so vast a number of agents as is contemplated by the 
bill, must, by the very nature of man, be attended by 
acts of caprice, injustice, and passion. The trials 
having their origin under this bill are to take place 
without the intervention of a jury and without any 
fixed rules of law or evidence. The rules on which 
offences are to be heard and determined by the nuraer-' 
ous agents, are such rules and regulations as the 
President, through the War Department, shall pre- 
scribe. No previous presentment is required, nor any 
indictment charging the commission of a crime against 
the laws ; but the trial must proceed on charges and 
specifications. The punishment will be not what the 
law declares, but such as a court-martial may think 
proper ; and from these arbitrary tribunals tliere lies 
no appeal, no writ of error to any of the courts in 
which the Constitution of the United States vests ex- 
clusively the judicial power of the country ; while the 
territory and the class of actions and oifences that are 
made subject to this measure are so extensive, that the 
bill itself, should it become a law, will have no limita- 
tion in point of time, but will form a part of the per- 
manent legislation of the country. I cannot reconcile 
a system of military jurisdiction of this k-ind with the 
words of the Constitution, which declare that ' no per- 
son shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment 
of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or 



SERVIC]:S AXU SPEECHES. 231 

naval forces or in the militia when in actual service 
in time of war or public danger ;' and that ' in all 
criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of 
the State or district wherein the crime shall have been 
committed.' 

" The safeguards which the wisdom and experience 
of ages taught our fathers to establish as securities 
for the protection of the innocent, the punishment of 
the guilty, and the equal administration of justice, are 
to be set aside, and for the sake of a more vigorous 
interposition in behalf of justice, we are to take the 
risk of the many acts of injustice that would of ne- 
cessity follow from an almost countless number of 
agents established in every parish or county in nearly 
a third of the States of the Union, over whose deci- 
sion there is to be no supervision or control by the 
Federal courts. The power that would be thus placed 
in the hands of the President, is such as in time of 
peace certainly ought never to be intrusted to any 
one man. If it be asked whether the creation of such 
a tribunal within a State is warranted as a measure 
of war, the question immediately presents itself, whe- 
ther we are still engaged in war. Let us not unneces- 
sarily disturb the commerce and credit and industry 
of the country, by declaring to the American people 
and the world that the United States are still in a con- 
dition of civil war. At present there is no part of our 
country in which the authority of the United States is 
disputed. Offences that may be committed by indi- 
viduals should not work a forfeiture of the rights of 
the same communities. The country has entered or 
is returning to a state of peace and industry, and the 



232 ANDEEW JOHNSON. 

rebellion is in fact at an end. The measure, therefore, 
seems to be as inconsistent with the actual condition 
of the country as it is at variance with the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. 

" If, passing from general considerations, we exam- 
ine the bill in detail, it is open to weighty objections. 
In time of war it was eminently proper that we should 
provide for those who were passing suddenly from a 
condition of bondage to a state of freedom. But this 
bill proposes to make the Freedmen's Bureau, estab- 
lished by the act of 1865 as one of many great and 
extraordinary military measures to suppress a formi- 
dable rebellion, a permanent branch of the public 
administration, with its powers greatly enlarged. I 
have no reason to suppose, and I do not understand 
it to be alleged, that the act of March, 1865, has proved 
deficient for the purposes for which it was passed, 
although at that time, and for a considerable period 
thereafter, the Government of the United States re- 
mained unacknowledged in most of the States whose 
inhabitants had been involved in the rebellion. The 
institution of slavei'y, for the military destruction of 
which the Freedmen's Bureau was called into exist- 
ence as an auxiliary force, has been already effectually 
and finally abrogated throughout the whole country 
by an amendment of the Constitutit)n of the United 
States, and practically its eradication has received the 
assent and concurrence of most of those States in 
which it at any time had existed. I am not, therefore, 
able to discern in the country any thing to justify an 
apprehension that the powers and agencies of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, whicli were effective for the pro- 
tection of frecdmen and refugees during the actual 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. ' 233 

continuation of hostilities and of African servitude, 
will now, in a time of peace and after the abolition 
of slavery, prove inadequate to the same proper ends. 
If I am correct in these views, there can be no neces- 
sity for the enlargement of the powers of the Bureau 
for which provision is made in the bill. 

" The third section of the bill authorizes a general 
and uulimit(!d grant of support to the destitute and 
suflering refugees and freedmen, and their Avives and 
children. Succeeding sections make provision for the 
rent or purchase of landed estates for freedmen, and 
for the erection, for their benefit, of suitable asylums 
and schools, the expenses to be defrayed from the 
treasury of the whole people. The Congress of the 
United States has never, heretofore, thought itself 
competent to establish asylums beyond the limits of 
the District of Columbia, except for the benefit of our 
disabled soldiers and sailors. It has never founded 
schools for any class of our own people, not even for 
the orphans of those who have fallen in the defence 
of the Union, but has left the care of their education 
to the much more competent and efficient control of 
the States, of communities, of private associations, 
and of individuals. It has never deemed itself au- 
thorized to expend the public money for the rent or 
purchase of homes for the thousands, not to say mil- 
lions, of the white race who ai'e honestly toiling from 
day to day for their subsistence. A system for the 
support of indigent persons in the United States was 
never contemplated by the authors of the Constitu- 
tion. Nor can any good reason be advanced why, as 
a permanent establishment, it should be founded for 
one class or color of our people more than for another. 



234 ANDEEW JOHISrSON. 

Pending the war, many refugees and frecdmen re- 
ceived support from the Government, but it was never 
intended that they should henceforth be fed, clothed, 
educated, and sheltered by the United States. The 
idea on which the slaves were assisted to freedom 
was, that on becoming free they would be a self-sus- 
taining population. Any legislation that shall imply 
that they are not expected to attain a self-sustaining 
condition must have a tendency injurious alike to their 
character and their prosperity. The appointment of 
an agent for every county and parish will create an 
immense patronage, and the expense of the numerous 
officers and their clerks to be appointed by the Presi- 
dent will be great in the beginning, with a tendency 
steadily to increase. The appropriations asked by 
the Freedmen's Bureau, as now established, for the 
year 1866, amount to $11,'I45,000. It may be safely 
estimated that the cost to be incurred under the pend- 
ing bill will require double that amount, — more than 
the entire sum expended in any one year under the 
administration of the second Adams. If the presence 
of agents in every parish and county is to be con- 
sidered as a war measure, opposition or even resist- 
ance might be provoked, so that to give cfiect to their 
jurisdiction troops would have to be stationed within 
reach of every one of them, and thus a standing army 
be rendered necessary. Large appropriations would 
therefore be required to sustain and enforce mili- 
tary jurisdiction in every county or parish from 
the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The condition of 
our fiscal afiairs is encouraging ; but, in order to 
sustain the present measure of public confidence, 
it is necessary that we practise not merely custom- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 235 

ary economy, but, as far as possible, severe retrench- 
ment. 

" In addition to the objections ah-eady stated, the 
fifth s<-ction of the bill proposes to take away land 
from its former owners, without any legal proceedings 
being first had, contrary to that provision of the Con- 
stitution which declares that no persons shall be de- 
prived of life, libert}^, or property without due process 
of law. It does not appear that a part of the lands 
which this section refers to may not be owned by 
minors or persons of unsound mind, or by those who 
have been faitliful to all their obligations as citizens 
of the United States. If any portion of the land is 
held by such persons, it is not competent for an}- other 
authority to deprive them of it. If, on the other hand, 
it be found that the property is liable to confiscation, 
even then it cannot be appropriated to public pur- 
poses until, by due process of law, it shall have been 
declared forfeited to the Government. 

"There are still further objections to the bill, on 
grounds seriously aifecting the class of persons to 
whom it is designed to bring relief. It will tend to 
keep the mind of tlie freedman in a state of uncertain 
expectation and restlessness, while to those among 
whom he lives it will be a source of constant and 
vague apprehension. Undoubtedly the freedman 
should be protected by the civil authorities, especially 
by the exercise of all the constitutional powers of the 
courts of the United States and of the States. His 
condition is not so exposed as may at first be imagined. 
He is in a portion of the country w'here his labor can- 
not well be spared. Competition for his services from 
planters, from those who arc constructing or repairing 



236 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

railroads, or from capitalists in his viciiiaj^-e, or from 
other States, will enable him to command almost his 
owii terms. He also possesses a perfect right to 
change his place of abode, and if, therefore, he docs 
not find in one community or State a mode of life 
suited to his desires, or proper remuneration for his 
labor, he can move to another where labor is more 
esteemed and better rewarded. In truth, however, 
each State, induced by its own wants and interests, 
will do what is necessary and proper to retain within 
its borders all the l^or that is needed for the develop- 
ment of its resources. The laws that regulate supply 
and demand will maintain their force, and the wages 
of the laborer will be regulated thereby. There is no 
danger that the great demand for labor will not oper- 
ate in favor of the laboi'er. Neither is sufficient con- 
sideration given to the ability of the freedmen to 
protect and take care of themselves. It is no more 
than justice to them to believe that, as they have 
received their freedom with moderation and forbear- 
ance, so they will distinguish themselves by their 
industry and thrift, and soon show the world that in a 
condition of freedom they are self-sustaining and 
capable of selecting their own employment and their 
own places of abode ; of insisting for themselves on 
a proper remuneration, and of establishing and main- 
taining their own asylums and schools. It is earnestly 
hoped that instead of wasting away, they will, by 
their own efforts, establish for themselves a condition 
of respectability and prosperity. It is certain that 
they can attain to that condition only through their 
own merits and exertions. In this connection the 
query presents itself, whether the system proposed by 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 237 

tlie bill win not, when put into complete operation, 
practically transfer the entire care, snpport, and con- 
trol of four millions of emancipated slaves to agents, 
overseers, or taskmasters, who, app<nntcd at Wash- 
ington, are to be located in every county and parish 
throughout the United States containing freednien and 
refugees. Such a sj^stem would inevitably tend to such 
a concentration of power in the Executive as would 
enable him, if so disposed, to control the action of a 
numerous class, and use them for the att;^nment of 
his own political ends. 

"I cannot but add another very grave objection to 
this bill. The Constitution imperatively declares, in 
connection with taxation, that each State shall have 
at least one representative, and fixes the rule for the 
number to which in future times each State shall be 
entitled. It also provides that the Senate of the 
United States shall be composed of two senators from 
each State, and adds with peculiar force that no State, 
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal 
suffrage in the Senate. The original act was neces- 
sarily passed in the absence of the States chiefly to 
be affected, because their people were then contuma- 
ciously engaged in the rebellion. Now the case is 
changed, and some, at least, of the States are attend- 
ing Congress by \oja\ representatives, soliciting the 
allowance of the constitutional right of rei>resenta- 
tion. At the time, however, of the consideration and 
the passing of the bill there was no senator or rejjre- 
sentative in Congress from the eleven States which 
are to lie mainly affected by its provisions. The very 
fact that reports were and are made against the good 
di.sp(»sili<>ii of the country, is an additional reason why 



238 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

they need and should have representatives of their 
own in Congress to explain their condition, repl}'- to 
accusations, and assist by their local knowledge in 
the perfecting of measures immediately'' affecting 
themselves ; while the liberty of deliberation would 
then be free, and Congress would have full power to 
decide according to its judgment. There could be no 
objection urged that the States most interested had 
not been permitted to be heard. The principle is 
firmly fixed in the minds of the American people that 
there should be no taxation without representation. 
Great burdens are now to be borne by all the countrj'-, 
and we may best demand that they shall be borne 
without murmur when they are voted by a majority 
of representatives of all the people. 

" I would not interfere with the unquestionable right 
of Congress to judge, each House for itself, of the 
elections, returns, and qualifications of its own mem- 
bers. But that authority cannot be construed as in- 
cluding the right to shut out in time of peace any 
State from representation to which it is entitled by 
the Constitution. At present all the people of eleven 
States are excluded, — those who were most faithful 
during the war not less than others. The State of 
Tennessee, for instance, whose authorities engaged in 
rebellion, was restored to all her constitutional rela- 
tions to the Union by the patriotism and energy of 
her injured and betrayed people. Before the war was 
brought to a termination they had placed themselves 
in relations with the General Government, had estab- 
lished a State government of their own, and, as they 
were not included in the emancipation proclamation, 
they, by their own act, had amended their constitution 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 239 

SO as to abolish slavery within the limits of their 
State. I know no reason why the State of Tennessee, 
for example, should not fully enjoy all her constitu- 
tional relations to the United States. 

" The President of the United States stands towards 
the country in a somewhat different attitude from that 
of any member of Congress chosen from a single dis- 
trict or State. The President is chosen by the people 
of all the States. Eleven States are not, at ^is time, 
represented in either branch of Congress. It would 
seem to be his duty on all proper occasions to pre- 
sent their just claims to Congress. There alwaj-s 
will be differences of opinion in the community, and 
individuals may be guilty of transgressions of the 
law. But these do not constitute valid objections 
against the right of a State to representation. I 
would in no wise interfere with the discretion of Con- 
gress with regard to the qualifications of members ; 
but I hold it my duty to recommend to you in the in- 
terests of peace, and in the interests of the Union, the 
admission of every State to its share of public legisla- 
tion, when, however insubordinate, insurgent, or rebel- 
lious its people may have been, it presents itself not 
only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the 
persons of their representatives whose loyalty cannot 
be doubted under existing constitutional or legal tests. 
It is plain that an indefi.nite or permanent exclusion 
of any part of the country from represcmtation must 
be attended by a spirit of disquiet and complaint. It 
is unwise and dangerous to pursue a course of meas- 
ures which will unite any large section of the conn- 
try against another section of the country, no matter 
how much the latter may predominate. The course of 



240 ANDREW JUIIXSON. 

immigration, the development of industry and busi- 
ness, and natural causes will raise up at the South 
men as devoted to the Union as those of any other 
part of the land. But if they are all excluded from 
Congress, if in a permanent statute they are declared 
not to be in full constitutional relations to the country, 
they may think they have cause to become a unit in 
feelings and sentiments against the Government. 
Under the political education of the American people, 
the idea is inherent and ineradicable that the consent 
of the majority of the whole people is necessary to 
secure a willing acquiescence in legislation. The bill 
under consideration refers to certain of the States as 
though they had not ' been fully restored in all their 
constitutional relations to the United States.' If they 
have not, let us at once act together to secure that 
desirable end at the earliest possible moment. It is 
hardly necessary for me to inform Congress that, in 
my own judgment, most of those States, so far at 
least as depends upon their own action, have already 
been fully restored, and are to be deemed to be en- 
titled to enjoy their constitutional rights as members 
of the Union. Reasoning from the Constitution itself, 
and from the actual situation of the country, I feel 
not only entitled, but bound, to assume that with the 
Federal courts restored in the several States, and in 
the full exercise of their functions, the rights and 
interests of all classes of the people will, with the 
aid of the military in cases of resistance to the law, 
be essentially protected against unconstitutional in- 
fringement and violation. Should this expectation 
unhappily fail, which I do not anticipate, then the 
Executive is already armed \yith the powers confei'red 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 24:1 

by the act of March, 1865, establishing- the Freed- 
men's Bureau ; and hereafter, as heretofore, he can 
employ the land and naval forces of the country to 
suppress insurrection and to overcome obstructions to 
the laws. 

" I return the bill to the Senate in the earnest hope 
that a measure involving questions and interests so 
important to the country will not become a law, un- 
less upon deliberate consideration by the people it 
shall receive the sanction of an enlightened public 
judgment, 

"Andrew Johnson. 

"Washington, D. C, Feb. 19, 1866." 

11 



242 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

fopeech to the citizens of washington, feb. 

22d, 1866. 

On Washington's birthday a meeting was held 
in "Washington to indorse the action of the Presi- 
dent in vetoing the Freedmen's Bureau Bill. All 
the prominent men in the city joined in it, and 
the crowd was immense. After the conclusion of 
the meeting, a committee appointed for the pur- 
pose waited upon the President to present him 
the resolutions, when he appeared and made the 
following speech to the assembled multitude : 

"Fellow-Citizens — for I presume I have the right 
to address you as such — to the committee who have 
conducted and org-anized this meeting- so far, I have 
to render my sincere thanks for the compliments and 
approbation they have manifested in their personal 
address to myself, and in the resolutions they have 
adopted. Fellow-citizens — I was about to tender my 
thanks to the committee who waited upon me and 
presented me with the resolutions adopted on this 
occasion — i^esolutions, as I understand, compliment- 
ary to the policy pursued by this administration since 
it came into power. I am free to say to you on this 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 243 

occasion, that it is extremely gratifyinj^ to me to 
know that so large a portion of mj fellow-citizens 
approve and indorse the policy that has been adopt- 
ed, and is intended to he carried out. (Applanse.) 
That policy has been one which was intended to 
restore the glorious union of these States and their 
original relations to the government of the United 
States. (Prolonged applause.) This seems to be a 
day peculiarly appropriate for such a manifestation — 
the day that gave birth to him who founded this Gov- 
ernment—the Father of his Country ; of him who 
stood at the head of the goverimient when all the 
States entered into the Union. This day, I say, is 
peculiarly appropriate to indorse the restoration of 
the Union of these States founded by the Father of 
his Countr3^ Washington, whose name this city 
bears, is embalmed in the hearts of all who love free 
government. (A voice— "So is Andrew Johnson.") 
Washington, who, in the language of his eulogists, 
was " First in peace, first in war, first in the hearts of 
his countrymen." No people can claim him ; no nation 
can appropriate him ; his reputation and life are the 
common inheritance of all who love free government. 

THE president's MOTTO THAT OF ANDREW JACKSON. 

" I to-day had the pleasure of attending the National 
Washington Monument Association, which is direct- 
ing its eftbrts to complete the monument erected to 
his memory. I was glad to meet them, and, so far as 
I could, to give them my humble influence. A monu- 
ment is being erected to him within a stone's throw 
of the spot from which I address 3'ou. Let it be com- 
pleted. (Cheers.) Let the pledges which all these 



214 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

States, associations, and corporations hare placed in 
that monument of their faith and love for this Union 
be preserved. Let it be completed, and in tliis 
connection let me refer to the motto upon the stone 
sent from my own State. God bless (A voice — " And 
bless you") a State which has struggled for the pres- 
ervation of the Union, in the field and in the councils 
of the nation, and is now struggling in consequence 
of the interruption that has taken place in her rela- 
tions with the Federal Government, growing out of 
the rebellion, but struggling to recover those rela- 
tions and take her stand where she has stood since 
1*196. A motto is inscribed on that stone sent here 
to be placed in that monument of freedom and in 
commemoration of Washington. I stand by that 
sentiment, and she is willing to stand by it. It was 
the sentiment enunciated by the immortal Andrew 
Jackson, ' The Federal Union — it must be preserved.' 
(Wild shouts of applause.) Were it possible to have 
the great man whose statue is now before me, and 
whose portrait is behind me in the Capitol, and whose 
sentiment is inscribed on the stone deposited in the 
monument — were it possible to communicate with the 
illustrious dead, and he could be informed of or made 
to understand the working or progress of faction, re- 
bellion, and treason, the bones of the old man would 
stir in their coffin, and he would rise and shake oflTthe 
habiliments of the tomb ; he would extend that long 
arm and finger of his, and he would reiterate that glo- 
rious sentiment, ' The Federal Union — it must be pre- 
served.' (Applause.) But we see and witness what has 
transpired since his day. We remember what he did 
in 1833, when treason, treachery, and infidelity to the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 245 

Government and Constitution of the United States 
then stalked forth. It was his power and influence 
that then crushed the treason in its infancy. It was 
then stopped : hut only for a time — the spirit con- 
tinued. There were men disaffected to the Govern- 
ment both North and South. We had pecuh'ar insti- 
tutions, of which some complained and to which others 
were attached. One portion of our countrymen advo- 
cated that institution in the Soutli ; another opposed 
it in the North ; and it resulted in creating two ex- 
tremes. The one in the South reached the point at 
which they were prepared to dissolve the Govern- 
ment of the United States, to secure and preserve 
their peculiar institution ; and in what I may say on 
this occasion I want to be understood." 

THE REPUBLICANS AS DISUNIONISTS. 

" There was another portion of our countrymen wlio 
were opposed to this peculiar institution in the South, 
and who went to the extreme of being willing to break 
up the Government to get clear of it. [Applause.] I 
am talking to you to-day in the common phrase, and 
assume to be nothing but a citizen, and one Avho has 
been fighting for the Constitution and to preserve the 
Government. These two parties have been arrayed 
against each other ; and I stand before you to-day, as 
I did in the Senate in 1860, in the presence of those 
who were making war on the Constitution, and who 
wanted to disrupt the Government, to denounce, as I 
then did in my place, those who were so engaged, as 
traitors. I have never ceased to repeat, and so far 
as my efforts could go, to carry out, the sentiments I 
then uttered. [Cheers.] I have already remarked 



246 ANDREW JOHXSOISr. 

that there were two parties, one for destroying- the 
Government to preserve slavery, and the other to 
break up the Government to destroy shivery. The 
objects to be accomplished were different, it is true, 
so far as slavery is concerned, but they agreed in one 
thing-, and that was the breaking up of the Govern- 
ment. They agreed in the destruction of the Govern- 
ment, the precise thing which I have stood up to 
oppose. Whether the disunionists come from the South 
or the North I sta)id now where I did then, to vindicate 
the Union of these States and the Constitution of the 
country." [Applause.] 

THE DOORS OPEN TO THE SOUTH. 

" The rebellion or treason manifested itself in the 
South. I stood by the Government. I said I was for 
the Union with slavery, or I was for the Union with- 
out slavery. In either alternative, I was for my Gov- 
ernment and the Constitution. [Applause.] The 
Government has stretched forth its strong arm, and 
witli its physical power has put down treason in the 
field. Yes, the section of country which has arrayed 
itself against the Government has been put down by 
the Government itself. Now, what do these people 
say ? We said, ' No compromise ; we can settle this 
question with the South in eight and forty hours.' 
How? 'Disband your armies, acknowledge the Con- 
stitution of the United States, obey the law, and the 
whole question is settled.' Well, their armies have 
been disbanded. They come forward now in a spirit 
of magnanimity and say, ' We were mistaken ; we 
made an eflort to carry out the doctrine of secession 
and . dissolve the Union, but we have failed ; and, 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 247 

having traced this thing to a logical and physical 
consequence and result, we now again come forward 
and acknowledge the flag of our country, obedient to 
the Constitution and the supremacy of the law.' 
[Cheers.] I say, then, when you have yielded to the 
law, when you acknowledge your allegiance to the 
Government, I am ready to open the doors of the Union 
and resfoi'e you to your old relations to the Guvernment 
of our fathers." [Prolonged applause.] 

THE EXECUTIVE POWER, 

" Who, I ask, has suflFered more for the Union than 
I have ? I shall not now repeat the wrongs or suffer- 
ing inflicted upon me ; but it is not the way to deal 
with a whole people in the spirit of revenge. I know 
much has been said about the exercise of the pardon- 
ing power, so far as the Executive power is concerned. 
There is no one who has labored harder than I have to 
have the principal conscious and intelligent traitors 
brought to justice ; to have the law vindicated, and 
the great fact vindicated that treason is a crime. 
Yet, while conscious, intelligent traitors ai-e to be 
punished, should whole States, communities, and peo- 
ple be made to submit to and bear the penalty of 
death ? I have, perhaps, as much hostility and as 
much resentment as a man ought to have ; but we 
should conform our action and our conduct to the ex- 
ample of Him who founded our holy religion — not that 
I would liken this to it or bring any comparison, for I 
am not going to detain you long." 

THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS, AND HOW IT IS TO BE REMEDIED. 

"But, gentlemen, I came into power under the Con- 



24:3 ANDEEVV JOHNSON. 

stitution of the country and by the approbation of the 
people. And what did I find? I found eight millions 
of people who were in fact condemned under the law — 
and the penalty was death. Under the idea of revenge 
and resentment, they were to be annihilated and de- 
stroyed. Oh, how different this from the example set 
by the holy Founder of our relig'ion, whose divine arm 
touches the horizon and embraces the whole earth ! 
Yes, He who founded this great scheme came into the 
world and found our race condemned under the law — 
and the sentence was death. What was His example ? 
Instead of putting the world or a nation to death, He 
went forth with grace and attested by His blood and 
His wounds that He would die and let the nation live. 
[Applause.] Let them become loyal and willing sup- 
porters and defenders of our glorious Stripes and Stars 
and the Constitution of our country. Let their leaders, 
the conscious, intelligent traitors, suffer the penalty of 
the laiv, but for the great mass who have been forced 
into this rebellion and misled by their leaders, I say 
leniency, kindness, trust, and confidence." [Enthusiastic 
cheers.] 

THE RADICAL REBELS. 

" But, my countrymen, after having passed through 
the rebellion and given such evidence as I have — 
though men croak a great deal about it now — (laugh- 
ter) when I look back through the battle-fields and , 
see many of those brave men, in whose company I 
was in part of the rebellion where it was most diffi- 
cult and doubtful to be found ; before the smoke of 
battle has scarcely passed away; before the blood 
shed has scarcely congealed, what do we find ? The 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 249 

rebellion is put down by the strong arm of the Gov- 
ernment in the field; but is it the only ivai/ in ivhich ive 
can have rebellion ? They strug-gded for the breaking' 
up of the Government, but l^efore tliey are scarcely 
out of the battle-field, and before our brave men have 
scai'cely returned to their homes to renew the ties of 
affection and love, we find ourselves almost in the 
midst of another rebellion. [Applause.] The war to 
suppress our rebellion was to prevent the separation 
of the States, and thereby change the character of 
the Government and weakening its power. Now, 
what is the change ? There is an attempt to concen- 
trate the power- of the Government in the hands of a 
few, and thereby bring about a consolidation, ivhich is 
equally dangerous and objectionable loith separation. 
[Enthusiastic applause.] Wo find that powers are 
assumed and attempted to be exercised of a most ex- 
traordinary character. What are they ? We find that 
Government can be revolutionized, can be changed with- 
oid going into the battle-field. Sometimes revolutions 
the most disastrous to the peoi)le are effected Avithout 
shedding blood. The substance of our Government 
may be taken away, leaving only the form and shadow. 
Now, what are the attempts ? What is being pro- 
posed ? 

USURPATIONS OP CONGRESS. 

" We find that, in fact, by an irresponsible central 

directory, nearly all the powers of Government are 

assumed without even consulting the legislative or 

executive departments of the Government. Yes, and 

by resolution reported by a committee upon whom all 

the legislative power of the Government has been 

11* 



250 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

conferred, that principle in the Constitution which 
authorizes and empowers each branch of the legisla- 
tive department to be judges of the election and c^uali- 
fications of its own members, has been virtually taken 
away from those departments and conferred upon a 
committee, who must report before they can act under 
the Constitution and allow members duly elected to 
take their seats. By this rule they assume that there 
must be laws passed; that there must be recognition 
in respect to a State in the Union, with all its practi- 
cal relations restored, before the respective houses of 
Congress, under the Constitution, shall judge of the 
election and qualifications of its own members. What 
position is that ? You have been struggling for four 
years to put down the rebellion. You denied in the 
beginning of the struggle that any State had the right 
to go out. You said that they had neither the right 
nor the power. The issue has been made, and it has 
been settled that a State has neither the right nor the 
power to go out of the Union. And when you have 
settled that by the executive and military power of 
the Government, and by the public judgment, you turn 
around and assume that they are out and shall not come 
inP [Laughter and cheers.] 

NOT THE president's POSITION. 

"I am free to say to you, as your Executive, that I- 
am not prepared to take any S7ich position. I said in the 
Seuate, at the very inception of the rebellion, that 
States had no right to go out and that they had no 
power to go out. That question has been settled. 
And I cannot turn round now and give the direct lie 
to all I profess to have done in the last five years. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 251 

[Laughter and applause.] I can do no sucli thing. 
I say that when these States comply with the Consti- 
tution, when they have given sufficient evidence of 
their loyalty, and that they can be trusted, when they 
yield obedience to the law, I say, extend to them, the 
right hand of fellowship, and let peace and union be 
restored. [Loud cheers.] I have fought traitors and 
treason in the vSouth ; I opposed the Davises and 
Toombses, the Slidells, and a long list of others whose 
names I need not repeat; and now, when I turn round 
at the other end of the line, I find men — I care not by 
what name j^ou call them — [A voice, ' Call them trai- 
tors'], who still stand opposed to the restoration of the 
Union of the.se States. And I am free to say to you 
that I am still for the preservation of this compact 5 I 
am still for the restoration of this Union ; I am still 
in favor of this great Government of ours going on 
and following out its destiny. [A voice, ' Give us 
the names.']" 

THE DISUNIONISTS ANNOUNCED BY NAME. 

"A gentleman calls for their names. Well, suppose 
I should give them. [A voice, ' We know them.'] I 
look upon them — I repeat it, as President or citizen — 
as being as much opposed to the fundamental prin- 
ciples of this Government, and believe they are as 
much laboring to pervert or destroy them as were the 
men who fought against us. [A voice, ' What are 
the names ?'] / say Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania 
— [tremendous applause] — / say Charles Sumner — 
[great applause] — / say Wendell Phillips, and others 
of the same strijje, are among tJiem. [A voice, ' Give it 
to Forney.'] Some geutleniau in the crowd says, 



252 A^JDEEW JOHNSON. 

* Give it to Forney.' I have onl}'^ just to say that I do 

not waste my ammunition iqx>n dead ducks." [La;igliter 
and applause.] 

THE PRESIDENT FOR THE -WHOLE COUNTRY. 

" I stand for my country, I stand for the Constitu- 
tion, where I placed my feet from my entrance into 
public life. Tliey may traduce me, they may slander 
me, they may vituperate ; but let me say to you that 
it has no effect upon me. [Cheers.] And let me say 
in addition, that I do not intend to he bullied hy my ene- 
mies. [Applause, and a cry, ' The people will sustain 
you.'] I know, my countrymen, that it has been in- 
sinuated, and not only insinuated, but said directly — 
the intimation has been given in high places — that if 
such a usurpation of power had been exercised two 
hundred years ago in a particular reign it would have 
cost a certain individual his head. What usurpa- 
tion has Andrew Johnson been guilty of ? [' None, 
none.'] The usurpation I have been guilty of has 
always been standing between the people and the en- 
croachments of power. And because I dared to say 
in a conversation with a fellow-citizen, and a senator 
too, that I thought amendments to the Constitution 
ought not to be so freqtient ; that their effect would 
be that it would lose all its dignity ; that the old in- 
strument Would be lost sight of iu a short time ; be- 
cause I happened to say that if it was amended such 
and such amendments should be adopted — it was a 
usurpation of power that would have cost a king his 
head at a ceiiain time. [Laughter and applause.] 
And in connection with this subject it was explained 
by the same gentleman that we were in the midst of 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 253 

an earthquake, that he trembled and could not yield. 
[Laughter.] Yes, there in ,an earthquake coming. 
There is a ground-sicell coming of jjopidar judgment 
and indignation. [' That's true.'] The American peo- 
ple will speak by their interests, and they will know 
who are their friends and who their enemies. "What 
positions have I held under this government ? Begin- 
ning with an alderman and running through all 
branches of the Legislature. [A voice — ' From a 
tailor up.') Some gentleman says I have been a 
tailor. [Tremendous applause.] Now, that did not 
discomfit me in the least ; for when I used to be a 
tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and 
making close fits — [great laughter] — always punc- 
tual with my customers, and always did good work. 
[A voice — ' No patchwork.'] No, I do not want any 
patchwork. I want a whole suit. But I Avill pass 
by this little facetiousness. My friends may say you 
are President, and you must not talk about such 
things. When principles are involved, my country- 
men, when the existence of my country is imperilled, 
I will act as I did on former occasions, and speak 
what I think. I was saying that I had held nearly 
all positions, from alderman, through both branches 
of Congress, to that which I now occupy, and who is 
there that will say that Andrew Johnson ever made a 
pledge that he did not redeem, or made a promise he 
did not fulfil ? Who will say that he has ever acted 
otherwise than in fidelity to the great mass *of the 
American people ? They may talk about beheading 
and usurpation ; but when I am beheaded I want the 
American people to witness I do not want by inuen- 
does, by indirect marks in high places, to see the man 



254: ANDREW JOHNSON. 

who has assassination brooding in his bosom, ex- 
claim, ' This presidential obstacle must be gotten out 
of the way.' I make use of a very strong expres- 
sion when I say that I have no doubt the intention 
VMS to incite assassination, and so get out of the way 
the obstacle from place and power. Whether by 
assassination or not, there are individuals in this 
Government, I doubt not, who want to destroy our 
institutions and change the character of the Govern- 
ment. Are they not satisfied with the blood which 
has been shed ? Does not the murder of Lincoln ap- 
pease the vengeance and wrath of the opponents of 
this Government ? Are they still unslaked ? Do they 
still want more blood ? Have they not got honor and 
courage enough to attain their object otherwise than 
by the hands of the assassin ? No, no ; I am not 
afraid of assassins attacking me where a brave and 
courageous man would attack another. I only dread 
him \vhen he would go in disguise, his footsteps 
noiseless. If it is blood they want, let them have 
courage enough to strike like men. I know they are 
willing to wound, but they are afraid to strike. [Ap- 
plause.] If my blood is to be shed because I vindi- 
cate the Union and the preservation of this Govern- 
ment' in its original purity and character, let it be 
shed ; let an altar to the Union be erected, and then, 
if it is necessary, take me and lay me upon it, and the 
blood that now warms and animates my existence 
shall be poured out as a fit libation to the Union ot 
these States. [Great applause.] But let the oppo- 
nents of this Government remember that when it is 
poured out, ' the blood of the martyrs will be the seed 
of the Church.' [Cheers.] Gentlemen, this Union 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 255 

will ^row — it will continue to increase in strength 
and power, though it may be cemented and cleansed 
in blood. I have talked longer now than I intended. 
Let me thank you for the honor you have done me." 

MR. LINCOLX'S IDEA OF COMPULSORY REPRESENTATION. 

" So far as this Government is concerned, let me 
say one word in reference to the amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States. When I reached 
Washington for the purpose of being inaugurated as 
Vice-President of the United States I had a conversa- 
tion with Mr. Lincoln. We were talking about the 
condition of affairs and in reference to matters in my 
own State. I said that we had called a convention, 
had amended our Constitution by abolishing slavery 
in the State — a State not embraced in his proclama- 
tion. All this met his approbation and gave him en- 
couragement, and in talking upon the amendment to 
the Constitution, he said : ' When the amendment to 
the Constitution is adopted by three-fourths of the 
States, we shall have all, or pretty nearly all. I am 
in favor of amending the Constitution, if there was one 
other adopted.' Said I, ' What is that, Mr. President V 
Said he, ' I have labored to preserve this Union. I 
have toiled four years ; I have been subjected to cal- 
umny and misrepresentation, j'et my great desire has 
been to preserve the Union of these States intact un- 
der the Constitution as they were before.' ' But,' said 
I, ' Mr. President, what amendment do you refer to ?' 
He said he thought there should be an amendment to 
the Constitution which would compel all the States to 
send their Senators and Representatives to the Con- 
gress of the United States. Yes, compel them. The 



256 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

idea was in his mind that it was a part of the doc- 
trine of secession to break np the Government by 
States withdrawing their Senators and Representa- 
tives from Congress ; and, therefore, he desired a 
Constitutional amendment to compel them to be sent." 

THE DISUNION IDEA OF NO REPRESENTATION. 

" How now does the matter stand ? In the Constitu- 
tion of the country, even that portion of it which pro- 
vides for the amendment of the organic law, says that 
no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its 
representation in the Senate. And now what do we 
find ? We find the position taken that States shall not 
be represented ; that we may impose taxes ; that we 
may send our tax-gatherers to every region and por- 
tion of a State ; that the people are to be oppressed 
with taxes ; but when they come here to participate in 
legislation of the country, thej^ are met at the door, and 
told, ' No ! you must pay your taxes ; you must bear 
the burdens of the Government ; but you must not 
participate in the legislation of the country, which is 
to affect you for all time.' Is this just ? [' No, no.'] 
Then, I saj^, let as admit into the councils of the 
nation those who are unmistakably and unequivocally 
loyal — those men who acknowledge their allegiance 
to the Government and swear to support the Constitu- 
tion. It is all embraced in that. The amplification of 
an oath makes no difference, if a man is not loyal. But 
you may adopt whatever test oath you please to prove 
their loyalty. That is a matter of detail for which I 
care nothing. Let him be unquestionably loyal, 
owing his allegiance to the Trovernment and willing 
to support it in its hour of peril and of need, and I am 



\ 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 257 

willing to trust him. I know that some do not attach 
so much importance to this principle as I do. But 
one principle we carried through. The Revolution 
was fought that there should be no taxation without 
representation. I hold to that principle, laid down as 
fundamental by our fathers. If it was good then, it is 
now. If it was a rule to stand by then, it is a rule 
to stand by now. It is a fundamental principle that 
should be adhered to as long as governments last." 

THE CONSTITUTION OUR GUIDE AND SAFETY. 

" I know it was said by some during the rebellion 
that our Constitution had been rolled up as a piece of 
parchment and laid away ; that in the time of war 
and rebellion there was no Constitution. Well, we 
know that sometimes, from the very great necessity of 
the case, from a great emergency, we must do uncon- 
stitutional things in order to preserve the Constitution 
itself But if, while the rebellion was going on, the 
Constitution was rolled up as a piece of parchment ; 
if it was violated in some particular to save the Gov- 
ernment, there may have been some excuse to justify 
it : but now that peace has come, now the war is 
over, we want a written Constitution, and I say the 
time has come to take the Constitution down, unroll 
it, read it, and understand its provisions. Now, if j^ou 
have saved the Government by violating the Constitu- 
tion in war, j'ou can only save it in peace by preserv- 
ing the Constitution of our fathers as it is now un- 
folded. It must now be read and understood by the 
American people. I come here to-day, as far as I can 
in making these remarks, th vindicate the Constitution 
and to save it, for it does seem to me that encroach- 



258 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

ment after encroachment is proposed. I stand to-day 
prepared, as far as I can, to resist these encroach- 
ments upon the Constitution and Government. Now 
that we have peace, let us enforce the Constitution ; 
let us live under and by its provisions ; let it be pub- 
lished ; let it be printed in blazing characters, as if it 
were in the heavens, punctuated with stars, that all 
may read and understand ; let us consult that instru- 
ment ; let us digest its provisions, understand them, 
and, understanding, abide by them. I tell the oppo- 
nents of the Government, I care not from what quarter 
they come — whether from the East, West, North, or 
South, you who are engaged in the icork of breaking up 
the Government by amendments to the Constitution, that 
the principles of free government, all deeply rooted in 
the American heart, all the powers combined, I care 
not "of what character they are, cannot destroy that 
great instrument, that great chart of freedom. They 
may seem to succeed for a time ; but their attempts 
will be futile. They might as well imdertake to lock 
up the winds or chain the waves of the ocean and con- 
fine them to limits. They may think now it can be 
done by a concurrent resolution ; but when it is sub- 
mitted to the popular judgment and to the popular 
will, they will find that they might as well introduce a 
resolution to repeal the laws of gravity as to keep this 
Union from being restored. It is just about as feasible 
to resist the great law of gravity, which binds all to 
a common centre, as that great law which will bring 
back these States to their regular relations with the 
Union. All these conspiracies and machinations. North 
and South, I cannot prevent. All that is wanted is 
time, until the American people can get to see what is 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 259 

going on. I would the whole American people could 
be assembled here to-day, as you are. I wish we had 
an amphitheatre capacious enough to hold these thirty 
millions of people, that they could be here and witness 
the struggle that is going on to preserve the Consti- 
tution of their fathers. They would settle this ques- 
tion. They could see who it is, and how and what 
kind of spirit is breaking up this free Government. 
Yes, when they come to see the struggle and under- 
stand who is for and who against them, if you could 
make them perform the part of gladiators, in the fii'st 
tilt 3'ou would find the enemies of the country crushed 
and helpless." 

ANDV Johnson's luck. 

" I have detained you longer than I intended. 
[Voices, ' Go on.'] We are in a great struggle. I 
am 3^our instrument. Who is there I have not toiled . 
and labored for ? Where is the man or woman, either 
in public or private life, who has not always received 
my attention or my time ? Pardon the egotism. They 
say that man Johnson is a lucky man, that no man 
can defeat me. I will tell you what constitutes luck. 
It is due to right, and being for the people ; that is 
what constitutes good luck. Somehow or other the 
people will find out and understand who is for and 
who is against them. I have been placed in as many 
trying positions as any mortal man was ever placed 
in, but so far I have not deserted the people, and I 
believe they will not desert me. What principle have 
I violated? What sentiments have I swerved from ? 
Can they put their finger upon it ? Have you heard 
of them pointing out any discrepancy ? Have you 



260 ANDREW JOUNSON. 

heard them quote my predecessor, who fell a martj'-r 
to his country's cause, as going in opposition or in 
contradistinction to any thing tliat I have done ? The 
very policy which I am pursuing now was pursued 
under his administration — was being pursued by him 
when that inscrutable Providence saw fit to summon 
him, I trust, to a better world. Where is there one 
principle adopted by him in reference to this restora- 
tion that I have departed from. [' None, none.'] The 
war, then, is not simply upon me, biit upon my prede- 
cessor. I have tried to do my duty. I know that 
some people, in their jealousy, have made the remark 
that the White House is President. Just let me say 
that the charms of the White House and all that sort 
of flummery has less influence with me than with those 
who are talking about it. The little I eat or wear 
does not amount to much. That required to sustain 
me and my little family is very little, for I am not 
feeding many, though in one sense of consanguinity I 
am akin to everybody. The conscious satisfaction of 
having performed my dutj' to my country is all the 
reward I have." 

STAND BY THE COXSTITUTION. 

" Then, in conclusion, let me ask this vast concourse, 
this sea of upturned faces, to join with me in stand- 
ing round the Constitution of our country. It is again 
unfolded and the people are invited to read, to under- 
stand, and to maintain its provisions. Let us stand 
by the Constitution of our fathers, though the heavens 
themselves may fall. Let us stand by it, though fac- 
tion may rage. Tliough taunts and jeers may come, 
though vituperation may come in its most violent char- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 261 

acter, I will he found standing by the Cofistitution as the 
chief rock of onr safety, as the palladium of our civil 
and religious liberty. Yes, let us cling' to it as the 
mariner clings to his last plank when night and tem- 
pest close around him. Accept my thanks for the 
indulgence you have given me in making the extem- 
poraneous remarks I have upon this occasion. Let 
us go forward, forgetting the past and looking to the 
future, and try to restore our country. Trusting in 
Him who rules on high that ere long our Union will 
be restored, and that we will have peace, not only on 
earth, but especially with the people of the United 
States, and good-will, I thank you, my countrymen, 
for the spirit you have manifested on this occasion. 
When your country is gone, and you are about, 
look out and you will find the humble individual 
who now stands before you weeping over its final 
dissolution." 

A New York paper refers to tlie reception of 
the above remarkable speech of President John- 
son in Europe in the following terms : 

"The English papers praise in the strongest terms 
the President's speech delivered on Washington's 
birthday. That speech has put before the world the 
true, clear view of the state of parties here, and has 
extorted, for the leader of the people, expressions of 
the most earnest admiration from quarters hitherto 
content to cavil and sneer at all that originates on this 
side the Atlantic. The speech that the radicals de- 
nounced as horrible, vulgar, unfortunate, and out- 
rageous ; that some of the President's friends even 



262 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

were inclined to excuse and explain, and that the 
Herald declared to be greater and finer than any thing 
in Demosthenes, receives from Europe {he highest pos- 
sible meed of praise for its energetic simplicity, and 
for its sentiments is declared to be ' not unworthy the 
great founder of the American republic' Such a 
speech, says the London Times, ' has not often been 
heard in America — a speech entirely free from tawdry 
ornament or ambitious metaphor, but conveying the 
firmest determination and the most enlightened prin- 
ciples in the plainest and simplest language.' And 
the same paper says in another article : ' There is a 
stamp of reality and proud self-confidence in this 
appeal to the sovereign people, which obliterates the 
effect of some indiscreet expressions, and makes us 
feel that Mr. Johnson is equal to guiding the destinies 
of a great nation through a perilous crisis. * * * 
No hereditary monarch, nor even an elective emperor, 
inheriting the traditions and administrative system of 
an hereditary monarchy, can ever be placed in the 
same position as President Johnson, and it is to be 
feared that few princes born in the purple would be 
capable of facing a great emergency with equal cour- 
age and dignity.' Mr. Johnson, it is said, ' if any 
man ever did, occupies nobly and worthily a great 
historic position. The destinies of millions of the 
human race depend upon him, and he rises fully to the 
height of the occasion. Men whose nerves are shaken 
by the holiday politics of such a country as ours will 
stand aghast at the audacity with which President 
Johnson confronts his adversaries.' Such is the Eu- 
ropean verdict, and the country may thus see that, 
viewed from a proper distance — a distance that en- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 263 

ables one to take in its full proportions and relations 
to the state of the country — the President's speech is 
not less great and statesman-like than we declared it 
to be from the first." 



26-1 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



\ 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

THE CIYIL EIGHTS BILL. — THE PEESEDENT's VETO. 

The veto by President Jolinson of the " Civil 
Riglits Bill," is generally acknowledged as one of 
the ablest state papers ever emanating from the 
Executiva Department. It shows that Mr. John- 
son has a mind at once logical and capable of 
a complete comprehension of any subject before 
him. The veto is unanswerable, and though 
Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, undertook a reply 
to it, he utterly failed in demohshing it, and 
only succeeded in advertising the inconsistency 
of his own political opinion. " There," said a 
Radical to a Johnson man, " read Mr. TrumbuU's 
speech" (handing him a copy), " and see how 
completely Mr. Johnson is answered." " Yes," 
replied the Johnson man, " if Mr. Trumbull has 
answered Mr. Johnson, he has also demoHshed 
himself, for I have an extract from a speech de- 
livered by Mr. T. in the Senate, on the 12th of 
December, 1859, in which I find this language : 

" 'In my judgment, there is a distinction between 
the white and black races, made by Omnipotence 
itself. I do not believe these two races can live 
happily or pleasantly together,' " 



\ 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 265 

This extract silenced liis Radical friend, if it 
did not convince liim tliat Mr. Trumbull was like 
the lawyer, that he is trying to make the worse 
appear the better reason. Mr. Johnson's veto is 
so able and statesmanlike a letter that I make no 
apology in presenting it to my readers in full. 
The following is the message : 

To the Senate of the United States : . 

I regret that the bill which has passed both Houses 
of Congress, entitled " An Act to protect all persons 
in the United States in their civil riglits, and furnish 
the means of their vindication," contains provisions 
which I cannot approve, consistently with my sense 
of duty to the whole people, and my obligations to 
the Constitution of the United States. I am, there- 
fore, constrained to return it to the Senate (the 
House in which it originated) with my objections to 
its becoming a law. 

By the first section of the bill, all persons born in 
the United States, and not subject to asy foreign 
power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to 
be citizens of the United States. This provision com- 
prehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indiana 
subject to taxation, the people called Gipsies, as well 
as the entire race designated as blacks, people of 
color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African 
blood. Every individual -of these races, born in the 
United States, is by the bill made a citizen of the 
United States. It does not purport to declare or con- 
fer any other right of citizenship than Federal citizen- 
ship; it does not propose to give these classes of per- 
sons any status as citizens of States, except that 

12 



266 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

which may result from their status as citizens of the 
United States. Tlie power to confer ihe right of 
State citizenship is just as exclusively with the 
several States, as the power to confer the right of 
Federal citizenship is with Congress. The right of 
Federal citizenship, thus to be conferred in the several 
excepted ratios before mentioned, is now, for the first 
time, proposed to be given by law. If, as is claimed 
by many, all persons who are native born, already 
are, by virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the Uni- 
ted States, the passage of the pending bill cannot be 
necessary to make them such. If, on the other hand, 
such persons are not citizens, as may be assumed 
from the proposed legislation to make them such, the 
grave question presents itself whether, where eleven 
of the thirty-six States are unrepresented in Congress 
at the time, it is sound policy to make our entire col- 
ored population, and all other excepted classes, citi- 
zens of the United States. Four millions of them 
have just emerged from slavery into freedom. Can 
it be reasonably supposed that they possess the re- 
quisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privi- 
leges and immunities of citizenship of the United 
States ? Have the people of the sevei'al States ex- 
pressed such a conviction ? It may also be asked, 
whether it is necessary that they should be declared 
citizens in order that they may be secured in the en- 
joyment of the civil rights proposed to be conferred 
by the bill ? Those rights are, by Federal as well as 
by State laws, secured to all domiciled aliens and 
foreigners, even before the completion of the process 
of naturalization ; and it may safely be assumed that 
the same enactments are sufficient to give like protec- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 267 

tion and benefits to those for whom this bill provides 
special legislation. Besides, the policy of the Gov- 
ernment, from its origin to the present time, seems to 
have been that persons who are strangers to and un- 
familiar with our institutions and our laws, should 
pass through a certain probation; at the end of which, 
before attaining the coveted prize, they must give 
evidence of their fitness to receive and to exercise the 
rights of citizens as contemplated by the Constitution 
of the United States. The bill in effect proposes a 
discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, 
worthy and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the 
negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the ave- 
nues to freedom and intelligence have just now been 
suddenly opened. He must of necessity, from his 
previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less 
informed as to the nature and character of our insti- 
tutions than he who, coming from abroad, has to some 
extent, at least, familiarized himself with the princi- 
ples of a Government to which he voluntarily intrusts 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet it is 
now proposed by a single legislative enactment to 
confer tlie rights of citizens upon all persons of Afri- 
can descent, born within the extended limits of the 
Lnited States, while persons of foreign birth, who 
make our land their home, must undergo a probation 
of five years, and can only then become citizens upon 
proof that they are of good moral character, attached 
ti» the principles of the Constitution of the United 
States, and well disposed to the good order and hap- 
piness of the same. The first section of the bill also 
contains an enumeration of the rights to be enjoyed 
by those classes so made citizens in every State and 



268 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

Territory of the United States. Tiiese rights are, 
to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and 
give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, 
or convey real and personal property, and to have full 
and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the 
security of persons and property as is enjoyed by 
white citizens. So, too, they are made subject to the 
same punishments, pains, and penalties common with 
white citizens, and to none others. Thus a perfect 
equality of the white and colored races is attempted 
to be fixed by a Federal law in every State of the 
Union, over the vast field of State jurisdiction covered 
by these enumerated rights. In no one of them can 
any S<?lte exercise any power of discrimination be- 
tween diiferent races. In the exercise of State policy 
over matters exclusively affecting the people of each 
State, it has frequently been thought expedient to 
discriminate between the two races. By the statutes 
of some of the States, North as well as South, it is 
enacted, for instance, that no white person shall inter- 
marry with a negro or mulatto. Chancellor Kent 
Bays, speaking of the blacks, that marriages between 
them and the whites are forbidden in some of the 
States where slavery does not exist, and they are pro- 
hibited in all the slavcholding States by law ; and 
when not absolutely contrary to law, they are revolt- 
ing, and regarded as an offence against public de- 
corum. I do not say that this bill repeals State laws, 
on the subject of marriage between the two races, for 
as the whites arc forbidden to intermarry with the 
blacks, the blacks can only make such contracts as 
the whites themselves are allowed to make, and there- 
fore cannot, under this bill, enter into the marriage 



SERVlClvS AND SPEECHES. 269 

contract with the whites. I take this dJscriinination, 
liowever, as an instance of the State policy as to dis- 
crimination, and to inquire whether, if Cong-ress can 
abrogate all State laws of discrimination between the 
two races, in the matter of real estate, of suits, and of 
contracts g-enerally, Congress may not also repeal the 
State laws as to the contract of marriage between the 
races ? Hitherto, every subject embraced in the 
enumeration of rights contained in the bill has been 
considered as exclusively belonging to the States; they 
all relate to the internal policy and economy of the 
respective States. They are matters which, in each 
State, concern the domestic condition of its people, 
varying- in each according- to its peculiar circum- 
stances and the safety and well-being of its own citi- 
zens. I do not mean to say that upon all these sub- 
jects there are not Federal restraints ; as, for instance, 
in the State power of legislation over contracts, there 
is a Federal limitation that no State shall pass a law 
impairing the obligations of contracts ; and, as to 
crimes, that no State shall pass an ex-i^od-facto law ; 
and, as to money, that no State shall make any thing 
but gold and silver a legal tender. But where can we 
find a Federal prohibition against the power of any 
State to discriminate, as do most of them, between 
aliens and citizens, between artificial persons called 
corporations, and naturalized persons, in the right to 
hold real estate ? If it be granted that Congress can 
repeal all State laws discriminating between whites 
and blacks, in the subjects covered by this bill, why, 
it may be asked, may not Congress repeal, in the same 
way, all State laws discriminating between the two 
races on the subject of suffrage and office ? If Con- 



270 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

gress shall declare by law who shall hold lands, who 
shall testify, who shall liave capacity to make a con- 
tract in a State, that Coug-ress can also declare by 
law who, without regard to race or color, shall have 
the right to act as a juror or as a judge, to hold any 
office, and jfinally to vote, in every State and Terri- 
tory of the United States. As respects the Terri- 
tories, they come within the power of Congress, for 
as to them the law-making power is the Federal 
power ; but as to the States, no similar provision 
exists, vesting in Congress the power to make rules 
and regulations for them. 

" The object of the second section of the bill is to 
afford discriminating protection to colored persons- in 
the full enjoyment of all the rights secured to them by 
the preceding section. It declares that ' any person 
who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regu- 
lation, or custom, shall subject or cause to be subjected 
any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the depriva- 
tion of any right secured or protected by this act, or 
to different punishmeM, pains, or penalties on account 
of such person having at any time been held in a con- 
dition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, 
than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, 
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on con- 
viction shall be punished by fine not exceeding one 
thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one 
vear, or both, in the discretion of the court.' This sec- 
tion seems to be designed to apply to some existing 
or future law of a State or Territory, which may con- 
flict with the provisions of the bill now under cousid- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 271 

eration. It provides for counteracting- such forbidden 
legislation, by imposing- fine and Jniprisonment upon 
the legislators who may pass such conflicting laws, or 
upon the officers or agents who shall put or attempt 
to put thi.'m into execution. It means an official of- 
fence, not a common crime, committed against law 
upon the person or property of the black race. Such 
an act may deprive the black man of his property, but 
not of his right to hold property. It means a depri- 
vatiim of the right itself, either by the State Judiciary 
or the State Legislature. It is, therefore, assumed 
that, under this section, members of a State Legisla- 
ture who should vote for laws conflicting with the 
provisions of the bill; that judges of the State courts 
wiio should render judgments in antagonism with its 
terms, and that marshals and sherifls who should as 
ministerial officers execute processes sanctioned by 
State laws and, issued by State judges in execution 
of their judgments, could be brought before other tri- 
bunals and there subjected to fine and imprisonment, 
for the performance of the duties which such State 
laws might impose. The legislation thus proposed 
invades the judicial power of the State. It says to 
every State court or judge : If you decide that this act 
is unconstitutional ; if you hold that over such a sub- 
ject-matter the said law is paramount, under color of 
a State law refuse the exercise of the right to the 
negro; your error of judgment, however conscientious, 
shall subject you to fine and imprisonment. I do not 
apprehend that the conflicting legislation which the 
bill seems to contemplate is so likely to occur, as to 
render it necessary at this time to adopt a measure of 
such constitutionality. In the next place, this pro- 



272 AXUKEW JOHNSON'. 

vision of the bill seems to be unnecessary, as adequate 
judicial remedies could be adopted to secure the de- 
sired end without invading the immunities of legisla- 
tors, always important to be preserved in the interest 
of public liberty, notwithstanding the independence 
of the judiciary, always essential to the preservation 
of individual rights, and without impairing the effi- 
ciency of ministerial officers, always necessary for the 
maintenance of public peace and order. The remedy 
proposed by this section seems to be in this respect 
not only anomalous but unconstitutional, for the Consti- 
tution guarantees nothing with certainty if it does not 
insure to the several States the right of making index 
ruling laws in regard to all matters arising within 
their jurisdiction, subject only to the restriction, in 
cases of conflict with the Constitution and constitu- 
tional laws of the United States — the latter to be held 
as the supreme law of the land. 

" The third section gives the district courts of -the 
United States exclusive cognizance of all crimes and 
offences committed against the provisions of this act, 
and concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts of 
the United States, of all civil and criminal cases affect- 
ing persons that are denied, or cannot enforce in the 
courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality 
where they may be, any of the rights secured to them 
by the first section. The construction which I have 
given to the second section is strengthened by this , 
third section, for it makes clear what kind of denial, 
or deprivation of rights secured by the first section, 
was in contemplation. It is a denial or deprivation 
of such rights in the courts or judicial tribunals of the 
State. It stands, therefore, clear of doubt that the 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 273 

oflfence and the penalties provided in the second sec- 
tion are intended for the State judge who, in the clear 
exercise of his functions as a judge, not acting minis- 
terially but judicially, shall decide contrary to this 
Federal law. In other words, when a State judge, 
acting upon a question involving a conflict between a 
State law and a Federal law, and bound, according 
to his own judgment and responsibility to give an 
impartial decision between the two, comes to the con- 
clusion that the State law is valid and the Federal law 
is invalid, he must not follow the dictates of his own 
judgment, at the peril of fine and imprisonment. The 
legislative department of the Government of the United 
States thus takes from the judicial department of the 
States the sacred and exclusive duty of judicial de- 
cision, and converts the State judge into a mere min- 
isterial officer, bound to decide according to the will 
of Congress. It is clear that in States which deny to 
persons, whose rights are secured by the first section 
of the bill, any one of those rights, all criminal and 
civil cases affecting them will, by the provisions of 
the third section, come under the executive cognizance 
of the Federal tribunals. It follows that if in any 
State, which denies to a colored person any one of 
all these rights, that person should commit a crime 
against the laws of a State — murder, arson, rape, 
or any other crime — all protection and punishment, 
through the courts of the State, are taken away, and 
he can ordy be tried and punished in the Federal 
courts. How is the criminal to be tried, if the offence 
is provided for and punished by Federal law ? That 
law, and not the State law, is to govern. It was only 
when the offence does not happen to be within the 

12* 



274 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

province of Federal law that tlie Federal courts are to 
try and punish him under any other law. The resort 
is to be had to the common law, as modified and 
changed by State legislation, so far as the same is not 
inconsistent Avith the Constitution and laws of the 
United States. So that over this vast domain of 
criminal jurisprudence, provided by each State for the 
protection of its citizens and for the punishment of all 
persons who violate its criminal laws, Federal law, 
wherever it can be made to apply, displaces State law. 
The question naturally arises, from what source Con- 
gress derives the power to transfer to Federal tribu- 
nals certain classes of cases embraced in this section. 
The Constitution expressly declares tliat the judicial 
power of the United States ' shall extend to all cases 
in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the 
laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which 
sliall be made, under their authority; to all cases aflfect- 
ing ambassadors or other public ministers and consuls; 
to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to 
controversies to which the United States shall be a 
party; to controversies between two or more States; 
between a State and citizens of another State ; be- 
tween citizens of different States; between citizens of 
the same State claiming land under grants of differ- 
ent States ; and between a State, or the citizens thereof, 
and foreign States, citizens, or subjects.' 

" Here the judicial power of the United States is 
expressly set forth and defined ; and the act of Sep- 
tember 24, 1*189, establishing the judicial courts of 
the United States, in conferring upon the Federal 
courts jurisdiction over cases originating in State tri- 
bunals, is careful to confine them to the classes 



SERVICES AND SrEECHES. 275 

enumerated in the above recited clause of the Consti- 
tution. This section of the bill 'undoubtedlj' compre- 
hends cases and authorizes the exercise of powers 
that are not, by the Constitution, within the jurisdic- 
tion of the courts of the United States. To transfer 
them to these courts would be an exercise of author- 
ity well calculated to excite distrust and alarm on 
the part of all the States, for the bill applies alike to 
all of them, as well as to those who have not been 
eng-aged in rebellion. It may be assumed that this 
authority is incident to the power granted to Con- 
gress by the Constitution as recently amended, to en- 
force, by appropriate legislation, the article declaring 
•that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the 
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdic- 
tion. It cannot, however, be justly claimed that, 
with a view to the enforcement of this article of the 
Constitution, there is at present any necessity for the 
exercise of all the powers which this bill confers. 
Slavery has been abolished, and at present nowhere 
exists within the jurisdiction of the United States. 
Nor has there been, nor is it likely there will be any 
attempts to revive it by the people of the States. If, 
however, any such attempt shall be made, it will then 
become the duty of the General Government to exer- 
cise any and all incidental powers necessary and 
proper to maintain inviolate this great law of free- 
dom. The fourth section of the bill provides that 
officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau shall be 
empowered to make arrests, and also that other 
officers shall be specially commissioned for that pur- 



276 ANDREW JOjrXSON". 

pose by the President of the United States. It also 
authorizes the Circuit Courts of the United States and 
the Superior Courts of the Territories to appoint, 
without limitation, commissioners, who are to be 
charged with the performance of quasi judicial duties. 
The fifth section empowers the commissioners so to be 
selected by the court, to appoint, in writing, one or 
more suitable persons from time to time to execute 
warrants and processes desirable by the bill. These 
numerous official ag-ents are made to constitute a sort 
of police in addition to the military, and are author- 
ized to summon a posse commitatus, and even to call 
to their aid such portion of the land and naval forces 
of the United States, or of the militia, ' as may be 
necessary to the performance of the duty with which 
they are charged.' This extraordinary power is to be 
conferred upon agents irresponsible to the Govern- 
ment and to the people, to whose number the discre- 
tion of the commissioners is the only limit, and in 
whose hands such authority mig-ht be made a terrible 
engine of wrong", oppression, and fraud. The general 
statutes regulating the land and naval forces of the 
United States, the militia, and the execution of the 
laws are believed to be adequate for any emergency 
which can occur in time of peace. If it should prove 
otherwise, Congress can at any time amend those 
laws in such a manner as, while subserving- the pub- 
lic welfare, not to jeopard the rights, interests, and 
liberties of the people. 

"The seventh section provides that a fee of ten 
dollars shall be paid to each commissioner in every 
case brought before him, and a fee of five dollars to 
lus deputy or deputies for each person he or they may 



SEKVICES AND SPEECHES. 277 

arrest and take before any such comniissionei" in gen- 
eral for performing such other duties as may be re- 
quired in the premises. All these fees are to be paid 
out of the Treasury of the United States, whether 
there is a conviction or not ; but in case of con- 
viction they are to be recoverable from the de- 
fendant. It seems to me that under the influence 
of such temptations, bad men might convert any 
law, however beneficent, into an instrument of 
persecution and fraud. By the eighth section of 
the bill, the United States Courts, which sit only 
in one place for white citizens, must migrate with 
the marshal and district attorney, and necessarily 
with the clerk (although he is not mentioned), 
to any part of the district, upon the order of the 
President, and there hold a court for the purpose of 
the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged 
with the violation of this act ; and there the judge 
and oflBcers of the court must remain, upon the order 
of the President, for the time therein designated. 

" The ninth section authorizes the President, or 
such person as he may empower for that purpose, to 
employ such part of the land or naval forces of the 
United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary 
to prevent the violation and enforce the due execu- 
tion of this act. This language seems to imply a 
permanent military force that is to be always at hand, 
and whose only business is to be the enforcement of 
this measure over the vast region where it intended 
to operate. 

" I do not propose to consider the policy of this 
bill. To me the details of the bill are fraught with 
evil. The white race and black race of the South 



278 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

have hitherto lived together under the relation of 
master and slave — capital owning labor. Now that 
relation is changed ; and as to ownership, capital and 
labor are divorced. They stand now, each master of 
itself. In this new relation, one being necessary to 
the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both 
are deeply interested in making harmonious. Each 
has equal power in settling the terms ; and, if left to 
the laws that regulate capital and labor, it is confi- 
dently believed that they will satisfactorily work out 
the problem'. Capital, it is true, has more intelli- 
gence ; but labor is never so ignorant as not to un- 
derstand its own interests, not to know its own value, 
and not to see that capital must pay that value. This 
bill frustrates this adjustment. It intervenes between 
capital and labor, and attempts to settle questions of 
political economy through the agency of numerous 
officials, whose interest it will be to foment discord 
between the two races ; for as the breach widens, 
their employment will continue ; and when it is 
closed, their occupation will terminate. In all our 
history, in all our experience as a people living under 
Federal and State law, no such system as that con- 
templated by the details of this bill has ever before 
been proposed or adopted. They establish for the 
security of the colored race safeguards which go in- 
definitely beyond any that the Genei'al Government 
has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the 
distinction of race and color is by the bill made to 
operate in favor of the colored and against the white 
race. They interfere with the municipal legislation 
of the States; with relations existing exclusively be- 
tween a State audits citizens, or between inhabitants 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 279 

of the same State; an absorption and assumption of 
power by tlie General Government which, if acqui- 
esced in, must sap and destroy our federative system 
of limited power, and break down the barriers which 
preserve the rights of the States. It is another step, 
or rather stride, towards centralization and the concen- 
tration of, all legislative powei's in the National Gov- 
ernment. The tendency of the bill must be to resus- 
citate the spirit of rebellion, and to arrest the pro- 
gress of those influences which are more closely 
drawing around the States the bonds of union and 
peace. 

" My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of 
the 1st of January, 1863, ordered and declared that 
all persons held as slaves within certain States and 
parts of States therein designated, were, and thence- 
forward should be free ; and further, that the Execu- 
tive Government of the United States, including the 
military and naval authorities thereof, would recog- 
nize and maintain the freedom of such persons. This 
guaranty has been rendered especially obligatory and 
sacred by the amendment of the Constitution abolish- 
ing slavery throughout the United States. I, there- 
fore, fully recognize the obligation to protect and 
defend that class of our people Avhenever and where- 
ever it shall become necessary, and to the full extent, 
compatible with the Constitution of the United States. 
Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for me 
to say that I will cheerfully co-operate with Congi'ess 
in ai^ measure that may be necessary for the preser- 
vation of civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those 
of all other classes of persons throughout the United 
States, by judicial process under equal and impartial 



280 ANDREW' JOHNSON. 

laws, or couformably with the provisions of the Fed- 
eral Constitution. 

" I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret 
that in considering the bills- and joint resolutions, 
forty-two in number, which have been thus far sub- 
mitted for my approval, I am compelled to withhold 
my assent from a second measure that has received 
the sanction of both Houses of Congress. 

" Andrew Johnson. 

" Washington, D. C, March 27, 1866." 



SEEVICES AND SPEECHES. 281 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ANNUAL MESSAGE TO THE THIETY-KINTH CONGEESS. 

*' Felloio-citizens of the Senate and Houae of liepre- 
sentatives : 

" To express gratitude to God, in the name of the 
people, for the preservation of the United States, is 
my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next 
revert to the death of the late President by an act of 
parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still 
fresh ; it finds some solace in the consideration that 
he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by 
entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magis- 
tracy, to which he had been elected ; that he brought 
the civil war substantially to a close ; that his loss 
was deplored in all parts of the Union ; and that 
foreign nations have rendered justice to his memory. 
His removal cast upon me a heavier weight of cares 
than ever devolved upon any one of his predecessors. 
To fulfil my trust I need the support and confidence 
of all who are associated with me in the various de- 
partments of the Government, and support and con- 
fidence of the people. There is but one way in 
which I can hope to gain their necessary aid ; it is, 
to state with frankness the principles wliich guide my 
conduct, and their application to the present state of 



282 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

affairs, well aware that tlie eflficiency of my labors 
will, in a great measure, depend on yonr and their 
undivided approbation. 

" The Union of the United States of America was 
intended by its authors to last as long as the States 
themselves shall last. ' The Union shall be per- 
petual,' are the words of the Confederation. ' To form 
A MORE perfect Union,' by an ordinance of the people 
of the United States, is the declared purpose of the 
Constitution. The hand of Divine Providence was 
never more plainly visible in the affairs of men thail 
in the framing and the adopting of that instrument. 
It is, beyond comparison, the greatest event in Ameri- 
can history ; and indeed is it not, of all events in 
modern times, the most pregnant with conse.quences 
for every people of the earth ? The members of the 
Convention which prepared it, brought to their work 
the experience of the Confederation, of their several 
States, and of other republican governments, old and 
new ; but they needed and they obtained a wisdom 
superior to experience. And when for its validity it 
required the approval of a people that occupied a 
large part of a continent and acted separately in 
many distinct conventions, v»hat is more wonderful 
than that, after earnest contention and long discussion, 
all feelings and all opinions were ultimately drawn in 
one way to its support ? 

" The Constitution to which life was thus imparted 
contains within itself ample resources for its own pres- 
ervation. It has power to enforce the laws, punish 
treason, and insure domestic tranquillity. In case of 
tlie usurpation of the Government of a State by one 
man, or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of the United 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES 283 

States to make good the g-uaranty to tliat State of a 
-republican form of goveninient, and so to maintain 
the homogencousness of all. Does the lapse of time 
reveal defects ? A simple mode of amendment is pro- 
vided in ihe Gjns[itiition itself, so that its conditions 
can always be made to conform to the requirements 
of advancina: civilization. No room is allowed even 
for the thought of a possibility of its coming to an 
end. And these powers of self-preservation have al- 
ways been asserted in their complete integrity by 
every patriotic Chief Magistrate — by Jefferson and 
Jackson, not less than by Washington and Madison. 
Tie parting advice of the Father of his Country, while 
yet President, to the people of the United States, was, 
tliat ' the free Constitution, which was the work of 
their hands, might be sacredly maintained ;' and the 
inaugural words of President Jefferson held up ' the 
preservation of the General Government, in its con- 
stitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at 
home and safety abroad.' The Constitution is the 
work of ' the People of the United States/ and it 
should be as indestructible as the people. 

" It is not strange that the framers of the Constitu- 
tion, which had no model in the past, should not have 
fully comprehended the excellence of their own work. 
Fresh from a struggle agfeinst arbitrary power, 
many patriots suffered from harassing fears of an 
absorpticm of the State Governments by the General 
Government, and many from a dread that the States 
would break away from their orbits. But the very 
greatness of our country sliould allay the apprelien- 
sion of encroachments by the General Government. 
The subjects that come unquestionably within its 



284 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

jurisdiction ai*e so numerous, that it must ever nat- 
urally refuse to be embarrassed by questions that lie 
beyond it. Were it otherwise, the Executive would 
sink beneath the burden ; the channels of justice 
would be choked ; legislation would bo obstructed 
by excess ; so that there is a greater temptation to 
exercise some of the functions of the General Govern- 
ment through the States than to trespass on their 
rightful sphere. ' The absolute acquiescence in the 
decisions of the majority' was, at the beginning of 
the century, enforced by Jefferson ' as the vital prin- 
ciple of republics,' and the events of the last four 
years have established, we will hope forever, that 
there lies no appeal to force. 

"The maintenance of the Union brings with it 
'the support of the State Governments in all their 
rights ;' but it is not one of the rights of any State 
Government to renounce its own place in the Union, 
or to nullify the laws of the Union. The largest 
liberty is to be maintained in the discussion of the 
acts of the Federal Government ; but there is no ap- 
peal from its laws, except to the various branches of 
that Government itself, or to the people, who grant 
to the members of the Legislative and of the Exe- 
cutive Departments no tenure but a limited one, and 
in that manner always retain the powers of redress. 

" ' The sovereignty of the States' is the language 
of the Confederacy, and not the language of the Con- 
stitution. The latter contains the emphatic words : 
' The Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all 
treaties made or which shall be made under the au- 
thority of the United States, shall be the supreme 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES, 285 

law of the land ; and tho judges in every State shall 
be bound tliereby, any thing- in the constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding-.' 

" Certainly the Government of the United States is 
■a limited government ; and so is every State govern- 
ment a limited government. With us, this idea of 
limitation spreads through every form of administra- 
tion, general, State, and municipal, and rests on the 
great distinguishing principle of the recognition of 
the rights of man. Tiie ancient republics absorbed 
the individual in the State, prescribed his religion, 
and controlled his activity. The American system 
rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man 
to life, libert}^, and the pursuit of happiness ; to free- 
dom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all 
his faculties. As a consequence, the State Govern- 
ment is limited, as to the General Government in the 
interest of the Union, as to the individual citizen in 
the interest of freedom. 

" States, with proper limitations of power, are es- 
sential to the existence of the Constitution of the 
United States. At the very commencement, when we 
assumed a place among the powers of the earth, the 
Declaration of Independence was adopted by States ; 
so also were the Articles of Confederation ; and when 
' the People of the United States' ordained and es- 
tablished the Constitution, it was the assent of the 
States, one by one, which gave it vitality. In the 
event, too, of any amendment to the Constitution, the 
proposition of Congress needs the confirmation of 
States. Without States, one great branch of the 
legislative government wpuld be wanting. And, if 
we look beyond the letter of the Constitution to the 



286 ANDKEW JOHNSON. 

character of our country, its capacity for comprehend- 
ing within its jurisdiction a vast continental empire is 
due to the S3^stem of States. The best security for the 
perpetual existence of the States is the ' supreme au- 
thority' of the Constitution of the United States. The 
perpetuity of the Constitution brings with it the per- 
petuity of the States ; their mutual relation makes us 
what we are, and in our political system their con- 
nection is indissoluble. The whole cannot exist with- 
out the parts, nor the parts without the whole. So 
long' as the Constitution of the United States endures, 
the States will endure : the destruction of the one is 
the destruction of the other ; the preservation of the 
one is the preservation of the other. 

" I have thus explained my views of the mutual rela- 
tions of the Constitution and the States, because they 
unfold the principles on which I have sought to solve 
the momentous questions and overcome the appalling 
difficulties that met me at the very commencement of 
my administration. It has been my steadfast object 
to escape from the sway of momentary passions, and 
to derive a healing policy from the fundamental and 
unchanging principles of the Constitution. 

" I found the States sufifering from the effects of a 
civil war. Resistance to the General Government 
appeared to have exhausted itself. The United Slates 
had recovered possession of their forts and arsenals ; 
and their armies were in the occupation of every State 
which had attempted to secede. Whether the terri- 
tory within the limits of those States should be held 
as conquered territory, under military authority ema- 
nating from the President as the head of the army, was 
the first question that presented itself for decision. 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 287 

" Now, military governments, established for an in- 
definite period, would have offered no security for the 
early suppression of discontent ; would have divided 
the people into the vanquishers and the vanquished ; 
and would have envenomed hatred, rather than have 
restored affection. Once established, no precise limit 
to their continuance was conceivable. They would 
have occasioned an incalculable and exhausting- ex- 
pense. Peaceful emigration to and from that portion 
of the country is one of the best means that can be 
thought of for the restoration of harmony ; and that 
emigration would have been prevented ; for what 
emigrant from abroad, what industrious citizen at 
home, would place himself willingly under military 
rule ? The chief persons who would have followed in 
the train of the army would have been dependents on 
the General Government, or men who expected profit 
from the miseries of their erring fellow-citizens. The 
powers of patronage and rule which would have been 
exercised, under the President, over a vast, and popu- 
lous, and naturally wealthy region, are greater than, 
unless under extreme necessity, I should be willing 
to intrust to any one man ; they are such as, for my- 
self, I could never, unless on occasions of great emer- 
gency, consent to exercise. The wilful use of such 
powers, if continued through a period of years, would 
have endangered the purity of the general adminis- 
tration and the liberties of the States which remained 
loyal. 

" Besides, the policy of military rule over a conquered 
territory would have implied that the States whose 
inhabitants may have taken part in the rebellion had, 
by the act of those inhabitants, ceased to exist. But 



288 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

the true theory is, that all pretended acts of secession 
were, from the beginning-, null and void. The States 
cannot comniit treason, nor screen the individual citi- 
zens who may have committed treason, any more than 
they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful com- 
merce with any foreign power. The States attempt- 
ing to secede placed themselves in a condition where 
their vitality was impaired, but not extinguished — 
their functions suspended, but not destroyed. 

" But if any State neglects or refuses to perform its 
offices, there is the more need that the General Gov- 
ernment should maintain all its authority, and, as 
soon as practicable, resume the exercise of all its 
functions. On this principle I have acted, and have 
gradually and quietly, and by almost imperceptible 
steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the 
General Government and of the States. To that end, 
Provisional Governors have been appointed for the 
States, conventions called, Governors elected, Legis- 
latures assembled, and Senators and Representatives 
chosen to the Congress of the United States. At the 
same time, the coiirts of the United States, as far as 
could be done, have been reopened, so that the laws 
of the United States may be enforced through their 
agency. The blockade has been removed and the 
custom-houses re-established in ports of entry, so that 
the revenue of the United States may be collected. 
The Post-office Department renews its ceaseless 
activity, and the General Government is thereby 
enabled to communicate promptly with its officers 
and agents. The courts bring security to persons 
and property ; the opening of the ports invites the 
restoration of industry and commerce ; the post-office 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 289 

renews the facilities of social intercourse and of busi- 
ness. And is it not happy for us all, that the restora- 
tion of each one of these functions of the General 
Government brings with it a blessing to the States 
over which they are extended ? Is it not a sure 
promise of harmony and renewed attachment to the 
Union, that, after all that has happened, the return of 
the General Government is known only as a benefi- 
cence ? 

" I know very well that this policy is attended with 
some risk ; that for its success it requires at least the 
acquiescence of the States which it concerns ; that it 
implies an invitation to those States, by renewing 
their allegiance to the United States, to resume their 
functions as States of the Union. But it is a risk that 
must be taken ; in the choice of difficulties, it is the 
smallest risk ; and to diminish, and, if possible, to 
remove all danger, I have felt it encumbent on me to 
assert one other power of the General Government — 
the power of pardon. As no State can throw a de- 
fence over the crime of treason, the power of pai'don 
is exclusively vested in the Executive Government of 
the United States. In exercising that power, I have 
taken every precaution to connect it with the clearest 
recognition of the binding force of the laws of the 
United States, and an unqualified acknowledgment of 
the great social change of condition in regard to 
slavery which has grown out of the war. 

" The next step which I have taken to restore the 
constitutional relations of the States, has been an 
invitation to them to participate in the high office of 
amending the Constitution, Eveiy patriot must wish 
for a general amnesty at the earliest epoch consistent 

13 



290 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

with public safety. For this great end there is need 
of a concurrence of all opinions, and the spirit of 
mutual conciliation. All parties in the late terrible 
conflict must work tog-ether in harmony. It is not 
too much to ask, in the name of the whole people, 
that, on the one side, the plan of restoration shall 
proceed in conformity with a willingness to cast the 
disorders of the past into oblivion ; and that, on the 
other, the evidence of sincerity in the future mainte- 
nance of the Union shall be put beyond any doubt by 
the ratification of the proposed amendment to the Con- 
stitution, which provides for the abolition of slavery 
forever within the limits of our country. So long as 
the adoption of this amendment is delayed, so long- 
will doubt, and jealousy, and uncertainty prevail. 
This is the measure which will efface the sad memory 
of the past ; this is the measure which will most cer- 
tainly call population, and capital, and security to 
those parts of the Union that need them most. In- 
deed, it is not too much to ask of the States which are 
now resuming their places in the family of the Union, 
to give this pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace. 
Until it is done, the past, however much we may de- 
sire it, will not be forgotten. The adoption of the 
amendment reunites us beyond all power of disrup- 
tion. It heals the wound that is still imperfectly 
closed ; it removes slavery, the element which has so 
long perplexed and divided the country ; it makes of 
us once more a united people, renewed and strength- 
ened, bound more than ever to mutual affection and 
support. 

" The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, 
it would remain for the States, whose powers have 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 291 

been so long in abeyance, to resume their places in 
the two branches of the National Legislature, and 
thei-eby complete the work of restoration. Here it is 
for you, fellow-citizens of the Senate, and for you, 
fellow-citizens of the Ifjuse of Representatives, to 
judge, each of you for yourselves, of the elec- 
tions, returns, and qualifications of your own mem- 
bers. 

" The full assertion of the powers of the General 
Government requires the holding of circuit courts of 
the United States within the districts where their au- 
thority has been interrupted. In the present posture 
of our public aifairs, strong objections have been urged 
to holding those courts in any of the States where the 
rebellion has existed ; and it was ascertained, by in- 
quiry, that the Circuit Court of the United States 
would not be held within the District of Virginia dur- 
ing the autumn or early winter, nor until Congress 
should have ' an opportunity to consider and act on 
the whole subject.' To your deliberations tlie restora- 
tion of this branch of the civil authority of the United 
States is therefore necessarily referred, with the hope 
that early provision will be made for the resumption 
of all its functions. It is manifest that treason, most 
flagrant in character, has been committed. Persons 
who are charged with its commission should have fair 
and impartial trials in the highest civil tribunals of 
the country, in order that the Constitution and the 
laws may be fully vindicated; the truth clearly estab- 
lished and affirmed that treason is a crime, that traitors 
should be punished and the offence made infamous; 
and, ut the same time, that the question may be judi- 
cially settled, finally and forever, that no State, of its 



293 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

own will, has the right to renounce its place in the 
Union. 

"The relations of the General Government towards 
the four millions of inhabitants, whom the war has 
called into freedom, have engaged my most serious 
consideration. On the propriety of attempting to 
make the freedmen electors by the proclamation of the 
Executive, I took fm' my counsel the Constitution 
itself, the interpretations of that instrument by its au- 
thors and their contemporaries, and recent legislation 
by Congress. When, at the first movement towards 
independence, the Congress of the United States in- 
structed the several States to institute governments 
of their own, they left each State to decide for itself 
the conditions for the enjoyment of the elective fran- 
chise. During the period of the confederacy, there 
continued to exist a very great diversity in the quali- 
fications of electors in the several States; and even 
witliin a State a distinction of qualifications prevailed 
with regard to the officers who were to be chosen. 
The Constitution of the United States recognizes these 
diversities when it enjoins that, in the choice of mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives of tlie United 
States, 'the electors in each State shall have the 
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numer- 
ous branch of the State Legislature.' After the for- 
mation of the Constitution, it remained, as before, the 
uniform usage for each State to enlarge the body of 
its electors, according to its OAvn judgment; and, un- 
der this sj'stem, one State after another has proceeded 
to increase the number of its electors, until now uni- 
versal suffrage, or something very near it, is the gen- 
eral rule. So fixed was this reservation of power in 



SERVICES AND ' SPEECHES. 2.93 

the habits of tliH people, and so niiinio.stiuiicd li;is been 
the interpretation of the Constitution, that during- the 
civil war the kite Pi-esident never iiarbured tlie pur- 
pose — certainly never avowed the purpose — of disre- 
garding it; and in the acts of Congress, during tha.t 
period, nothing can be found which, during the con- 
tinuance of hostilities, much less after their close, 
would have sanctioned any departure by the Executive 
from a policy which has so uniformly obtained. More- 
over, a concession of the elective franchise to the 
freedmen, by act of the President of the United States, 
must have been extended to all colored men, wherever 
found, and so must have established a change of suf- 
frage in the Northern, Middle, and AVestern States, 
not less than in the Southern and Southwestern. 
Such an act would have created a new class of 
voters, and would have been an assumption of 
power by the President which nothing in the Con- 
stitution or laws of the United States would have 
warranted. 

" On the other hand, every danger of conflict is 
avoided Avlien the settlement of the question is re- 
ferred to the several States. They can, each for it- 
self, decide on the measure, and whether it is to be 
adopted at once and absolutely, or introduced gradu- 
ally and with conditions. In my judgment, the freed- 
men, if they show patience and manly virtues, will 
sooner obtain a participation in the elective franchise 
through the States than through the General Govern- 
ment, even if it had power to intervene. When the 
tumult of emotions that have been raised by the sud- 
denness of the social change shall have subsided, it 
may prove that they will receive the kindliest usage 



294 ANDREW JOHNSON". 

fi"om some of those on whom they liave heretofore 
most closely depended. 

" But while I have no doubt that now, after the close 
of the war, it is not competent for the General Gov- 
ernment to extend the elective franchise in the several 
States, it is equally clear that g-ood faith requires the 
security of the freedmen in their liberty and their 
property, their right to labor, and their right to claim 
the just return of their labor. I cannot too strongly 
urge a dispassionate treatment of this subject, wl:^ich 
should be carefully kept aloof from all party strife. 
We must equally avoid hasty assumptions of any 
natural impossibility for the two races to live side by 
side, in a state of mutual benefit and good-will. The 
experiment involves us in no inconsistency ; let us, 
then, go on and make that experiment in good faith, 
and not be too easily disheartened. The country is 
in need of labor, and the freedmen are in need of em- 
ployment, culture, and protection. While their right 
of voluntary migration and expatriation is not to be 
questioned, I would not advise their forced removal 
and colonization. Let us rather encourage them to 
honorable and useful industry, where it may be bene- 
ficial to themselves and to the country ; and, instead 
of hasty anticipations of the certainty of failure, ^et 
there be nothing wanting to the fair trial of the ex- 
periment. The change in their condition is the sub- 
stitution of labor by contract for the status of slavery. 
The freedman cannot fairly be accused of unwilling- 
ness to work, so long as a doubt remains about his 
freedom of choice in his pursuits, and the certainty of 
his recovering his stipulated wages. In this the in- 
terests of the employer and the employed coincide. 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 295 

The employer desires in his workmen spirit and alac- 
rity, and these can l>e permanently secured in no other 
way. And if the one oup:ht to ha able to enforce the 
contract, so ought the other. The public interest will 
be best promoted, if the several States will provide 
adequate protection and remedies for the freedmen. 
Until this is in some way accomplished, there is no 
chance for the advantageous use of their labor ; and 
the blame of ill-success will not rest on them. 

" I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for 
the immediate realization of its remotest aims ; but 
time is always an element in reform. It is one of the 
greatest acts on record to have brought four millions 
of people into freedom. The career of free industry 
must be fairly opened to them ; and then their future 
prosperity and condition must, after all, rest mainly 
on themselves. If they fail, and so perish away, let 
us be careful that the failure shall not be attributable 
to any denial of justice. In all that relates to the 
destiny of the freedmen, we need not be too anxious 
to read the future ; many incidents which, from a 
speculative point of view, might raise alarm, will 
quietly settle themselves. 

" Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end, the 
greatness of its evil, in the point of view of public 
economy, becomes more and more apparent. Slavery 
was essentially a monopoly of labor, and as such 
locked the States where it prevailed against the in- 
coming of free industry. Where labor Avas the prop- 
"erty of the capitalist, the w^hite man was excluded 
from employment, or had but the second best chance 
of finding it ; and the foreign emigrant turned away 
from the I'cgion where his condition would be so pre- 



296 ANDREW JOHNSOISr. 

carious. With the dcstrnctiou of the mouopoly, free 
hibor will hasten from all parts of the civilized world 
to assist in developing- various and immeasurable re- 
sources which have hitherto lain doi'mant. The eight 
or nine States nearest the Gulf of Mexico have a soil 
of exuberant fertility, a climate friendly to long life, 
and can sustain a denser population than is found as 
yet in any part of our country'. And the futux'e influx 
of population to them will be mainly from the North, 
or from the most cultivated nations in Europe. From 
the sufierings that have attended them during our 
late struggle, let us look away to the future, which is 
sure to be laden for them with greater prosperity than 
has ever before been known. The removal of the 
monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those regions 
will be peopled by a numerous and enterprising popu- 
lation, which will vie with any in the Union in com- 
pactness, inventive genius, wealth, and industry. 

" Our Government springs from and was made for 
the people — not the people for the Government. To 
them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its 
courage, strength, and wisdom. But, while the Gov- 
ernment is thus bound to defer to the people, from 
whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very 
consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of 
resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Mo- 
nopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation are con- 
trary to the genius of free government, and ought not, 
to be allowed. Here, there is no room for favored 
classes or monopolies : the principle of our Govern- 
ment is that of equal laws and freedom of industry. 
Wherever a monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to 
be a source of danger, discoi'd, and trouble. We shall 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES, 297 

but fulfil our duties as legislators b^^ according ' equal 
and exact justice to all men,' special privileges to 
none. The Government is subordinate to the people; 
but, as the agent and representative of the people, it 
must be held superior to monopolies, which, in them- 
selves, ought never to be granted, and which, where 
they exist, must be subordinate and yield to the Gov- 
ernment. 

"The Constitution confers on Congress the right to 
regulate commerce among the several States. It is 
of the first necessity, for the maintenance of the 
Union, that that commerce should be free and unob- 
structed. No State can be justified in any device to 
tax the transit of travel and commerce between 
States. The position of many States is such that, if 
they were allowed to take advantage of it for pur- 
poses of local revenue, the commerce between States 
might be injuriously burdened, or even virtually pro- 
hibited. It is best, while the country is still young, 
and while the tendency to dangerous monopolies of 
this kind is still feeble, to use the power of Congress 
so as to prevent any selfish impediment to the free 
circulation of men and merchandise. A tax on travel 
and merchandise, in their transit, constitutes one of 
the worst forms of monopoly, and the evil is increased 
if coupled with a denial of the choice of route. When 
the vast extent of our country is considered, it is 
plain that every obstacle to the free circulation of 
commerce between the States ought to be sternly 
guarded against by appropriate legislation, within 
the limits of the Constitution. 

"The report of the Secretary of the Interior ex- 
plains the condition of the public lands, the transac- 

13* 



298 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

tions of the Patent Office and the Pension Bureau, 
tlie management of our Indian affairs, the progress 
made in the construction of the Pacific raih'oad, and 
furnishes information in reference to matters of kical 
interest in the District of Columbia. It also presents 
evidence of the successful operation of the Homestead 
Act, under the provisions of which 1,160,533 acres of 
the public lands were entered during the last fiscal 
year — more tlian one-fourth of the whole number of 
acres sold or otherwise disposed of during that period. 
It is estimated that the receipts derived from this 
source are sufficient to cover the expenses incident to 
the survey and disposal of the lands entered under 
this act, and that payments in cash to the extent of 
from fort}^ to fifty per cent, will be made by settlers, 
who may thus at any time acquire title before the ex- 
piration of the period at which it would otherwise 
vest. The homestead policy was established only 
after long and earnest resistance : experience proves 
its wisdom. The lands, in the hands of industrious 
settlers, whose labor creates wealth and contributes 
to the public resources, are Avorth more to the United 
States than if they had been reserved as a solitude 
for future purchasers. 

" The lamentable events of the last four years, and 
the sacrifices made by the gallant men of our army 
and navy, have swelled the records of the Pension 
Bureau to an unprecedented extent. On the 30th day 
of June last, the total number of pensioners was 
85,986, requiring for their annual pay, exclusive of 
expenses, the sum of $8,023,445. The number of ap- 
plications that have been allowed since that date will 
require a large increase of this amount for the next 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 299 

fiscal year. The moans for the payment of the sti- 
pends due, under existing laws, to our disabled sol- 
diers and sailors, and to the families of such as have 
perished in tlie service of the country, will no doubt 
be cheerfully and promptly granted. A grateful 
people will not hesitate to sanction any measures 
having for their object the relief of soldiers mutilated 
and families made fatherless in the efforts to preserve 
our national existence. 

" The report of the postmaster-general presents an 
encouraging exhibit of the operations of the Post- 
oflSce Department during the year. The revenues of 
the past year from the loyal States alone exceeded 
the maximum annual receipts from all the States pre- 
vious to the rebellion, in the sum of $6,038,091 ; and 
the annual average increase of revenue during the 
last four years, compared with the revenues of the 
four years immediately preceding the rebellion, was 
$3,533,845. The revenues of the last fiscal year 
amounted to $14,556,158, and the expenditures to 
$13,694,728, leaving a surplus of receipts over expendi- 
tures of $861,430. Progress has been made in re- 
storing the postal service in the Southern States. 
The views presented by the postmaster-general 
against the policy of granting subsidies to ocean mail 
steamship lines upon established routes, and in favor 
of continuing the present system, which limits the 
compensation for ocean service to the postage earn- 
ings, are recommended to the careful consideration of 
Congress, 

*' It appears, from the report of the Secretary of the 
Navy, that while, at the commencement of the pres- 
ent year, there were in commission 530 vessels of all 



300 ANDREW^ JOHXSON". 

descriptions, armed with 3,000 guns and manned by 
61,000 men, the number of vessels at present in com- 
mission is lit, with 830 guns and 12,128 men. By 
this prompt reduction of the naval forces the expenses 
of the Government have been larg'cly diminished, and 
a number of vessels, purchased for naval purposes 
from the merchant marine, have been returned to the 
peaceful pursuits of commerce. Since the suppres- 
sion of active hostilities our foreign squadrons have 
been re-established, and consist of vessels much more 
efficient than those employed on similar service pre- 
vious to the rebellion. The suggestion for the en- 
largement of the navy-yards, and especially for the 
establishment of one in fresh water for iron-clad ves- 
sels, is deserving of consideration, as is also the 
recommendation for a dilferent location and more 
ample g-rouuds for the naval academy. 

" In the report of the Secretary of "War, a general 
summary is given of the military campaigns of 1864 
and 1865, ending in the suppression of armed resist- 
ance to the national authority in the insurgent States. 
The operations of the general administrative bureaus 
of the War Department during the past jeav are 
detailed, and an estimate made of the appropriations 
that will be required for military piarposes in the fis- 
cal year commencing the 30th day of June, 1866. 
The national military force on the 1st of May, 1865, 
liimibered 1,000,516 men. It is proposed to reduce 
the military establishment to a peace footing, compre- 
hending fifty thousand troops of all arms, organized 
so as to admit of an enlargement by filling up the 
lauks to eighty-two thousand six hundred, if the cir- 
camstances of the country should require an aiig- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 301 

mentation of the avmy. The volunteer force has 
already been reduced by the discharge from service 
of over eight hundred thousand troops, and the de- 
partment is proceeding rapidly in the work of further 
reduction. The war estimates are reduced from 
$516,240,131 to $33,814,461, which amount, in the 
opinion of the department, is adequate for a peace 
establishment. The measures of retrenchment in 
each bureau and branch of the service exhibit a dili- 
gent economy worthy of commendation. Reference 
is also made in the report to the necessity of provid- 
ing for a uniform militia system, and to the propriety 
of making suitable provision for wounded and disabled 
oiScers and soldiers. 

" The revenue system of the country is a subject 
of vital interest to its honor and prosperity, and 
should command the earnest consideration of Con- 
gress. The Secretary of the Treasury will lay be- 
fore you a full and detailed report of the receipts and 
disbursements of the last fiscal year, of the first quar- 
ter of the present fiscal year, of the probable receipts 
and expenditures for the other three quarters, and 
the estimates for the year following the SOth of June, 
1866. I might content myself with a reference to 
that report, in which you will find all the iiiformation 
required for your deliberations and decision. But the 
paramount importance of the subject so presses itself 
on my own mind, that I cannot but lay before you 
my views of the measures which ai-e required for the 
good character, and, I might almost say, for the exist- 
ence of this people. The life of a republic lies cer- 
tainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of ita 
citizens ; but it is equally true that a good revenue 



302 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

system is the life of an org'anizcd government. I 
meet you at a time when the nation has volulitarily 
burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our 
annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into 
nothing when compared with the countless blessings 
that will be conferred upon our country and upon 
man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now, 
on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since 
the return of peace, it is of the utmost importance to 
inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be 
put in motion, and whicli shall commend itself 
to those who come after us for its continuance. We 
must aim at nothing less than the complete efface- 
ment of the financial evils that necessarily follow a 
state of civil war. We must endeavor to apply the 
earliest remedy to the deranged state of the currency, 
and not shrink from devising a policy which, without 
being oppressive to the people, shall immediately be- 
gin to effect a reduction of the debt, and, if persisted 
in, discharge it fully within a definitely fixed number 
of years. 

" It is our first duty to prepare in earnest for our 
I'ecovery from the ever-increasing evils of an irre- 
deemable currency, without a sudden revulsion, and 
yet without untimely procrastination. For that end, 
we must, each in our respective positions, prepare the 
way. I hold it the duty of the . Executive to insist 
upon frugality in the expenditures ; and a sparing 
economy is itself a great national resource. Of the 
banks to which authority has been given to issue 
notes secured by bonds of the United States, we may 
require the greatest moderation and prudence, and 
the law must be rigidly enforced when its limits are 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 303 

exceeded. We may, each one of us^ counsel onr ac- 
tive and enterprising' countrymen to be constantly on 
their guard, to liquidate debts contracted in a paper 
currency, and, by conducting business as nearly as 
possible on a system of cash payments or short credits, 
to hold themselves prepared to return to the standard 
of gold and silver. To aid our fellow-citizens in the 
prudent manag'enient of their monetary affairs, the 
duty devolves on us to diminish by law the amount 
of paper money now in circulation. Five years ago 
the bank-note circulation of the country amounted to 
not much more than two hundred millions ; now the 
circulation, bank and national, exceeds seven hundred 
millions. The simple statement of this fact recom- 
mends more strongly than any words of mine could 
do, the necessity of our restraining this expansion. 
The gradual reduction of the currency is the only 
measure that can save the business of the country 
from disastrous calamities ; and this can be almost 
imperceptibly accomplished by gradually funding the 
national circulation in securities that may be made 
redeemable at the pleasure of the Government. 

"Our debt is doubly secure — first in the actual 
wealth and still greater undeveloped resources of the 
country ; and next in the character of our institu- 
tions. The most intelligent observers among politi- 
cal economists have not failed to remark, that the 
public debt of a country is safe in proportion as its 
people are free ; that the debt of a republic is the 
safest of all. Our history confirms and establishes 
the theory, and is, I firmly believe, destined to give it 
a still more signal illustration. The secret of this 
superiority springs not merely from the fact that in a 



304 ANDREW JOnNSON. 

ifpniilic tiie national obligations are distributed more 
widely tlirough countless numbers in all classes of 
society ; it has its root in tlie character of our laws. 
Here ail men contribute to the public welfare, and 
bear their fair share of the public burdens. During 
the war, under the impulses of patriotism, the men of 
the great body of the 'people, without regard to their 
own comparative want of wealth, thronged to our 
armies and filled our fleets of war, and held them- 
selves ready to offer their lives for the public good. 
Now, in their turn, the property and income of the 
country should bear their just proportion of the bur- 
den of taxation, while in our impost sj'stem, through 
means of which increased vitality is incidentally im- 
parted to all the industrial interests of the nation, the 
duties should be so adjusted as to fall most heavily 
on articles of luxury, leaving the necessaries of life 
as free from taxation as the absolute wants of the 
Government, economically administered, will justify. 
No favored class should demand freedom from assess- 
ment, and the taxes should be so distributed as not 
to fall unduly on the poor, but rather on the accumu- 
lated wealth of the country. We should look at the 
national debt just as it is — not as a national bless- 
ing, but as a heavy burden on the industry of the coun- 
try, to be discharged without unnecessary delay. 

" It is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury 
that the expenditures for the fiscal year ending- the 30th 
of June, 1866, will exceed the receipts $112,194,947. 
It is gratifying, however, to state that it is also es- 
timated that the revenue for the year ending the 30th 
of June, 1867, will exceed the expenditures in the 
6um of $111,632,818. This amount, or so much as 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 305 

may be deemed sufficient fur the purpose, may be ap- 
plied to the reduction of the public debt, which, on 
the 31st day of October, 1865, Avas $2,740,854,150. 
Every reduction will diminish the total amount of 
interest to be paid, and so enlarge the means of still 
further reductions, until the whole shall be liquidated ; 
and this, as will be seen from the estimates of the 
Secretary of the Treasury, may be accomplished by 
annual payments even within a period not exceeding' 
thirty years. I have ftiith that we shall do all this 
within a reasonable time ; that, as we have amazed 
the world by the suppression of a civil war which was 
thought to be beyond the control of any Government, 
so we shall equally show the superiority of our insti- 
tutions by the prompt and faithful" discharge of our 
national obligations. 

" The Department of Agriculture, under its present 
direction, is accomplishing much in developing and 
utilizing the vast agricultural capabilities of the 
country, and for information respecting the details of 
its management reference is made to the annual re- 
port of the Commissioner. 

" I have dwelt thus fully on our domestic affairs 
because of their transcendent importance. Under any 
circumstances, our great extent of territory and variety 
of climate, producing almost every thing that is neces- 
sary for the wants, and even the comforts of man, 
make us singularly independent of the varying policy 
of foreign powers, and protect us against every temp- 
tation to ' entangling alliances ;' while at the present 
moment the re-establishment of harmony, and the 
strength that comes from harmony, will be our best 
security against ' nations who feel power and forget 



306 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

right.' For myself, it has been and it will be my con- 
stant aim to promote peace and amity with all foreign 
nations and powers ; and I have every reason to be- 
lieve that they all, without exception, are animated 
by the same disposition. Our relations Avith the 
Emperor of China, so recent in their origin, are most 
friendly. Our commerce with his dominions is re- 
ceiving new developments ; and it is very pleasing 
to find that the Government of that great empire 
manifests satisfaction with our policy, and reposes 
just confidence in the fairness which marks our ititer- 
course. The unbroken harmony between the United 
States and the Emperor of Russia is receiving a new 
support from an enterprise designed to carry the tele- 
graphic lines across the continent of Asia, through 
his dominions, and so to connect us with all Europe 
by a new channel of intercourse. Our commerce with 
South America is about to receive encouragement by 
a direct line of mail steamships to the rising Empire 
of Brazil. The distinguished party of men of science 
who have recently left our country to make a scien- 
tific exploration of the natural history and rivers and 
mountain ranges of that region, have received from 
the emperor that generous welcome which was to 
have been expected from his constant friendship for 
the United States, and his well-known zeal in promot- 
ing the advancement of knowledge. A hope is en- 
tertained that our commerce with the rich and popu- 
lous countries that border the Mediterranean sea may 
be largely increased. Nothing will be wanting, on 
the part of this Government, to extend the protection 
of our flag over the enterprise of our fellow-citizens. 
We receive from the powers in that region assurances 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 307 

■of g-ood-will ; and it is worthy of note that a special 
envoy has brought us messages of condolence on the 
death of our late Chief Magistrate from the Bey of 
Tunis, whose rule includes the old dominions of Car- 
thage, on the African coast. 

" Our domestic contest, now happily ended, has left 
some traces in our relations with one at least of the 
great maritime powers. The formal accordance of 
belligerent rights to the insurgent States was unpre- 
cedented, and has not been justified by the issue. But 
in the systems of neutrality pursued by the powers 
which made that concession, there was a marked dif- 
ference. The materials of war for the insurgent States 
were furnished, in a great measure, from the work- 
shops of Great Britain ; and British ships, manned by 
British subjects, and prepared for receiving British 
armaments, sailed from the ports of Great Britain to 
make war on American commerce, under the shelter 
of a commission from the insurgent States. These 
ships, liaving once escaped from British ports, ever 
afterwards entered them in every part of the woild, 
to refit, and so to renew their depredations. The con- 
sequences of this conduct were most disastrous to the 
States then in rebellion, increasing their desolation 
and misery by the prolongation of our civil contest. 
It had, moreover, the eflect, to a great extent, to drive 
the American flag from the sea, and to transfer much 
of our shipping and commerce to the very power 
whose subjects had created the necessity for such a 
change. These events took place before I was called 
to the administration of the Government. The sin- 
cere desire for peace by which I am animated, led me 
to approve the proposal, already made, to submit the 



308 ANDREW JOHNSOX. 

questions Avhich liad thus; arisen between the coun- 
tries to arbitration. Tiiese (questions are of such mo- 
ment that they must have commanded the attention of 
the great powers, and are so interwoven witli the 
peace and interests of every one of them as to have 
insured an impartial decisicm. I regret to inform you 
that Great Britain declined the arbitrament, but, on 
the other hand, invited us to the formation of a joint 
commission to settle mutual claims between tlie two 
countries, from vt^hich those for the depredations be- 
fore-mentioned should be excluded. The proposi- 
tion, in that very unsatisfactory form, has been de- 
clined. 

" The United States did not present the subject as 
an impeachment of the good faith of a power which 
was professing the most friendly dispositions, but as 
involving questions of public law, of which the settle- 
ment is essential to the peace of nations; and, tliough 
pecuniary reparation to their injured citizens would 
have followed incidentally on a decision against Great 
Britain, such compensation was not their primary ob- 
ject." They had a higher motive, and it was in the 
interests of peace and justice to establish important 
principles of international law. The correspondence 
will be placed before you. The ground on which the 
British Minister rests his justification is, substantially, 
that the municipal law of a nation, and the domestic 
interpretations of that law, are the measure of its duty 
as a neutral; and I feel bound to declare my opinion, 
before you and before the world, that that justifica- 
tion cannot be sustained before the tribunal of nations. 
At the same time, I do not advise to any present at- 
tempt at redress by acts of legislation. For the future, 



SERVICES AXD SPEECHES. 309 

friendship between the two countries must rest on the 
basis of mutual justice. 

" From the moment of the establishment of our free 
Constitution, the civilized world has been convulsed 
by revolutions in the interests of democracy or of 
monarchy ; but through all those revolutions the 
United States have wisely and firmly refused to be- 
come propagandists of republicanism. It is the only 
government suited to our condition ; but we have 
never sought to impose it on others ; and we have 
consistently followed the advice of Washington, to 
recommend it only by the careful preservation and 
prudent use of the blessing. During all the inter- 
vening period the policy of European powers and of 
the United States has, on the whole, been harmonious. 
Twice, indeed, rumors of the invasion of some parts 
of America, in the interest of monarchy, have- pre- 
vailed ; twice my predecessors have had occasion to 
announce the views of this nation in respect to such 
interference. On both occasions the remonstrance of 
the United States was respected, from a deep convic- 
tion, on the part of European governments, that the 
system of non-interference and mutual _ abstinence 
from propagandism was the true rule for the two 
hemispheres. Since those times we have advanced 
in wealth and power ; but we retain the same pur- 
pose to leave the nations of Europe to choose their 
own dynasties and form their own systems of govern- 
ment. This consistent moderation may justly demand 
a corresponding moderation. We should regard it 
as a great calamity to ourselves, to the cause of good 
gov(>rnment, and to the peace of the world, should any 
European power challenge the American people, as it 



310 ANDEEW JOHNSON, 

were, to the defence of republicanism against foreign 
interference. We cannot foresee, and are unwilling 
to consider, what opportunities might present them- 
selves, what combinations might offer to protect our- 
selves against designs inimical to our form of govern- 
ment. The United States desire to act in the future 
as they have ever acted heretofore ; they never will 
be driven from that course but by the aggression of 
European powers ; and we rely on the wisdom and 
justice of those powers to respect the system of non- 
interference which has so long been sanctioned by 
time, and which, by its good results, has approved 
itself to both continents. 

"The correspondence between the United States 
and France, in reference to questions which have be- 
come subjects of discussion between the two Govern- 
ments, will, at a proper time, be laid before Congress. 

"When, on the organization of our Government, 
under the Constitution, the President of the United 
States delivered his inaugural address to the two 
Houses of Ccmgress, he said to them, and through 
them to the country and to mankind : ' The preserva- 
tion of the sacred tire of liberty and the destiny of the 
republican model of government, are justlj'' considered 
as deeply, perhaps as finally staked on the experiment 
iiitrusted to the American people.' And the House of 
Representatives answered Washington by the voice 
of Madison : ' We adore the invisible hand which has 
led the American people, through so many difficulties, 
to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny 
of republican liberty.' More than seventy-six j-ears 
have glided away since these words were spoken ; 
the United States have passed through severer trials 



c 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES, 311 

than were foreseen ; and now, at this new epoch in 
onr existence as one nation, v,-ith our Union purified 
by sorrows, and strengthened by conflic', and estab- 
lislied by the virtue of the people, the greatness of 
the occasion invites us once more to repeat, with so- 
lemnity, the pledges of our fathers to hold ourselves 
answerable before our fellow-men for the success of 
the republican form of government. Experience has 
proved its suflBciency in peace and in war ; it has 
vindicated its authority through dangers, and aftlic- 
tions, and sudden and terrible emergencies, which 
would have crushed any system that had been less 
firmly fixed in the heart of the people. At the in- 
auguration of Washington the foreign relations of the 
country were few, and its trade was repressed by hos- 
tile regulations ; now all the civilized nations of the 
globe welcome our commerce, and their Governments 
profess towards us amity. Then our country felt its 
way hesitatingly along an untried path, with States 
so little bound together by rapid means of communi- 
cation as to be hardly known to one another, and 
with historic traditions extending over very few 
years ; now intercourse between the States is swift 
and intimate ; the experience of centuries has been 
crowded into a few generations, and has created an 
intense, indestructible nationality. Then our juris- 
diction did not reach beyond the inconvenient bound- 
aries of the territory which had achieved independ- 
ence ; now, through cessions of lands, first colonized 
by Spain and France, the country has accj^uired a more 
complex character, and has for its natural limits the 
chain of lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east 
and the west the two great oceans. Other nations 



312 ANDREW JOHNSON. 

were wasted by civil wars for ages before they could 
establish for themselves the necessary degree of 
unity ; the latent convictiou that our form of govern- 
ment is the best ever known to the world, has enabled 
us to emerge from civil war within four years, with a 
complete vindication of the constitutional authority of 
the General Government, and with our local liberties 
and State institutions unimpaired. The throngs of emi- 
grants that crowd to our shores are witnesses of the 
confidence of all peoples in our permanence. Here is 
the great land of free labor, where industry is blessed 
with unexampled rewards, and the bread of the work- 
ingman is sweetened by the consciousness that the 
cause of the country ' is his own cause, his own 
safety, his own dignity.' Here every one enjoys the 
free use of his faculties and the choice of activity as 
a natural right. Here, under the combined influence 
of a fruitful soil, genial climes, and happy institutions, 
population has increased fifteen-fold within a century. 
Here, through the easy development of boundless re- 
sources, wealth has increased with twofold greater 
rapidity than numbers, so that we have become 
secure against the financial vicissitudes of other 
countries, and, alike in business and in opinion, are 
self-centred and truly independent. Here more and 
more care is given to provide education for every one 
born on our soil. Here religion, released from polit- 
ical connection with the civil government, refuses to 
subserve the craft of statesmen, and becomes, in its 
independence, the spiritual life of the people. Here 
toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet 
certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure 
the victory. Here the human mind goes forth un- 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 313 

shackled in the pursiiit of science, to collect stores of 
knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mastery 
over the forces of nature. Here the national domain 
is offered and held in millions of separate freeholds, 
so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of any 
other part of the earth, constitute in reality a people. 
Here exists the democratic form of government ; and 
that form of government, by the confession of European 
statesmen, ' gives a power of which no other form is 
capable, because it incorporates every man with the 
State, and arouses every thing that belongs to the soul.' 
" Where, in past history, does a parallel exist to 
the public happiness which is within the reach of the 
people of the United States ? Where, in any part of 
the globe, can institutions be found so suited to their 
habits or so entitled to their h)ve as their own free 
Constitution ? Every one of them, then, in whatever 
part of the land he has his home, must wish its per- 
petuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in 
the words of Washington, that ' every step by which 
the people of the United States have advanced to the 
character of an independent nation, seems to have 
been distinguished by some token of Providential 
agency V Who will not join with me in the prayer, 
that the invisible hand which has led us through the 
clouds that gloomed around our path, will so guide us 
onward to a perfect restoration of fraternal affection, 
that we of this day may be able to transit our great 
inheritance, of State Governments in all their rights, 
of the Genera] Government in its whole constitutional 
vigor, to our posterity, and they to theirs through 
countless generations ? „ j^^^^^^^^ Johnson. 

" Washington, December 4, 1865." 



314 ANDREW JOHNSON. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

CONCLUSION. 

President Johnson, providentially called to the 
cliief executive chair at an extraordinary crisis, 
when the country was first emerging from the 
blood and smoke of a terrible civil war, and when 
the world was horror-stricken by the news of 
Lincoln's assassination — President Johnson as- 
sumed his onerous duties at a moment's notice, 
and has since been discharging them with an 
energy, tact, and discretion that cannot be too 
highly extolled. Without a parallel in the history 
of any other people, in its spirit of fraternal mag- 
nanimity, stands President Johnson's wise and 
beneficent pohcy of reconciHation and reunion. 
Thus it is that he is accepted by the Southern 
people, not as a conquering despot, but as a wel- 
come benefactor ; and hence their progress in the 
great task enjoined upon them of rebuilding their 
State institutions upon the enduring corner-stones 
of the sovereignty of the Union and universal 

liberty. 

Never did weighter burden press upon a 
human being than has rested upon the President 
every moment since he assumed the duties of his 



SERVICES AND SPEECHES. 315 

exalted station. His doctrine, that tlie secession 
of a State could not carry it out of tlie Union, 
and that as soon as it grounded its arms it re- 
sumed its former status in the federal group, has 
been of infinite service to him in his well-directed 
efibrts for a speedy restoration. This most de- 
sirable object is in a way of rapid accomplish- 
ment under his well-planned auspices. His first 
annual message at the opening of the thirty -ninth 
Congress, which we have given above, by its 
calm statement of the situation, and the manifest 
knowledge of its author how best to meet the 
poKtical crisis, is so admirably adapted as a safe 
and rational guide for both legislative and popu- 
lar action, as to secure for its statements, its 
reasonings, and its suggestions a strong and uni- 
versal approbation from the masses of the people. 
The sympathy of the masses is the firm tower 
upon which the President leans for support in 
his future, as he has always done in his past. It 
has never failed nor deserted him in former times, 
when, to common observers, all seemed dark and 
dismal around him, and it will not desert him 
now. If a rabid fanaticism, if a bitter prejudice 
shall attempt to oppose his wise and noble policy, 
he will meet their attacks 

" Firm as a rock of the ocean, tliat braves 
A thousaud wild waves on the shore.'" 

The people, whose Union he will have saved 
and cemented by bonds that never can be broken, 



31(3 AXDREW JOHXSOX. 

will rally arciiud their honest and dauntless be- 
nefactor in the might of an irresistible host. 
From New England to Texas, from the Old 
Dominion to the Pacilic shore, the name of An- 
drew Johnson will be dear to the hearts of the 
people as a household word, and their confiding 
gratitude will retain him as a worthy occupant 
of the chair first graced by the Father of his 
Country. 



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